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Date Posted: 02:25:14 12/05/02 Thu
Author: Doyle
Author Host/IP: WOPR-p-144-134-23-205.prem.tmns.net.au / 144.134.23.205
Subject: Re: 22
In reply to: silver 's message, "22" on 23:54:56 12/04/02 Wed

Okay, so here's the first part of ep22 with any typos I found having been fixed and any uh...sentences that maybe missed out a word or two also been fixed. You'll probably wanna read over it to make sure you're happy with my adjustments. Then I guess it's just a matter of copying and pasting.




We open at the Bicentennial Celebration. More officers join the throng of fighting in front of the dais. At the center, Buffy and Angel work as a team to fend off their attackers. Buffy spies a sudden opening, saying over her shoulder: “I’d like to introduce an idea. Let’s get the hell out of here!” Angel hears and follows her after one final kick to a charging cop. They run across the field, easily outdistancing their merely human pursuers. The camera zooms in on Buffy, running hard and fast, and there’s a fiercely focused expression on her face. Scene change: We’re suddenly in a forest. The subtitles tell us the year is 1803 as we hear the labored breathing of someone running through the woods. We cut to Isabella, la asesina, running. She’s wearing the same focused expression. She jumps over logs and dodges trees, keeping to an overgrown path. She runs past the camera. Moments later, Marguese appears behind her, running to keep up, but trying to be stealthy so she doesn’t hear him. There’s an eerie wailing sound out in the forest, and the boy is distracted. Ahead of him he can see Isabella running straight on, not diverted, and he follows. In the distance, we hear chanting: one word over and over again, but it’s too hard to make out. Isabella suddenly stops, walking along the path, eyes everywhere. She emerges from the path directly in front of the cave opening. It seems to be glowing from within. Pausing only to take a deep breath, she enters.

Cut to the Sunnydale P.D. The door in the basement room is flung open, and the irate Commissioner shoves Xander through the doorway. Xander stumbles and falls, but doesn’t appear to be as disoriented as he was, and manages to bring his hands up to prevent his face from hitting the floor. Behind the Commissioner, the First Evil comes in, affecting a leisurely stroll. Her composure seems to have slipped a little, however, after her confrontation with the slayer. The Commissioner is red-faced, raising his voice when he reminds her of the risk she just took. The First ignores him, bending down to look at Xander, eye to eye. She asks him what he thought he was doing. Xander has trouble meeting her eyes; his personality seems to be resurfacing a little. He asks her in response what she’s done to him. The Commissioner looks worried. “I thought you said he was totally under your control?” The First, annoyed, stands straight again and says that he is. There’s no way out for him, now, but the human spirit is surprisingly resilient. “It’s time to quit pussyfooting around,” she says, and then without warning turns and launches herself at Xander.

He screams in pain and terror as she morphs in midair into a dark, shimmering mass. It lands on his body and begins absorbing into him. Xander continues screaming as it penetrates him. He writhes, fighting the force now within him, and the Commissioner watches in horrified fascination as Xander flops around on the floor in agony. Just as suddenly as it started, it ends. Xander is silent and apparently unconscious. The Commissioner, hesitant, steps forward to peer down at Xander’s body. He jerks back with a gasp when Xander suddenly opens his eyes and smiles, pleased. He gets up and flexes his hands a few times, looking at them as if he’s never seen them before. He notices a mirror on the wall by the door and walks slowly over to it. Peering into the mirror, Xander touches his face experimentally. He’s no longer smiling, but looks triumphant. “Oh yeah,” he says in a sinister voice, “I’m bad.”


Opening Credits.


Summers house. Upstairs, Tara sways, woozy. Giles steadies her, asking if she’s all right. She is, but the scorching spell she used to fend off the attacking officers has sapped her of power, especially using a lot of energy maintaining the bubble-shield spell. Giles helps her sit down. Having arrived at the tail end of the fight, Grant looks confused. “Spell?” he asks, “are you telling me you’re a witch?” Cordelia says that Tara is a good witch, like Willow. At the redhead’s name, Tara stiffens. “Willow,” she says, turning to Giles. “If they attacked us here...” Giles realizes that there may have been a simultaneous attempt on Willow and grabs the phone as Grant says, surprised, “Willow’s a witch, too?” Cordelia observes him skeptically. “You’ve accepted vampires, demons and slayers, but one bitty little spell and you’re freaked?” Grant just stares back at her, bemused, until Wesley hisses at them. He’s heard something. A moment later they all hear the front door slam, and feet stomping quickly up the stairs. Grant levels his gun on the doorway, and Wesley grips his sword, backing away from the door. Everyone relaxes a moment later when Buffy storms through the doorway, followed closely by Angel. The slayer is disheveled, and Grant quickly holsters his weapon. He says he heard over the radio she was in a fight at the celebration. Buffy confirms this, saying that the rogue cops he came here to expose are into heavier stuff than corruption, but her attention is on her friends. She ascertains that everyone is all right, then notices people missing.

“Where’s Dawn?” she demands. Tara tiredly tells her that they got a phone call just before they were attacked, and Dawn ran out. Tara thinks it might have been... Just then Giles thanks whoever he’s talking to and hangs up the phone. He turns back to the room at large and says Willow is missing. According to hospital staff, the room is a shambles and the pregnant witch is nowhere to be found, but an intern saw her earlier in the hallway with another girl. He recognized her as the patient who was there in a coma recently. “So where are they now?” Buffy asks.

Cut to Willow and Dawn. Dawn is supporting the witch, who is limping and walking only with great effort. She grits her teeth past the pain, saying she can't go any further. Dawn says they can make it if they get a cab. She tries to hail one that passes by, but it careens past them unstopping. Willow points out the bedlam around them, saying that no one will stop. As she talks, another pedestrian is attacked by a vampire. There's nothing they can do to help, however, due to Willow's condition. Dawn doesn't want to leave her alone, and realizes they need to get to some kind of shelter NOW. She looks around, realizes where they are. “Okay,” she says to Willow, steering her down another street, “I know where we can go.” Cut to the interior of a bar. Various patrons - human and demon alike - are sitting at the bar and in booths. All look up when the door opens and Dawn leads Willow in, the witch’s arm slung across her neck to help support her. Willow is still wearing her hospital gown, and looks exhausted. “Willy!” Dawn calls out. At the bar, Willy looks up from where he was shining the bar with a rag.

Interior, Grant’s house. The door opens to Grant’s key, and everyone files in. Buffy is in the middle of worrying about Dawn and Willow, but surprisingly it’s Tara who says they’ll be okay. They’re not at the hospital, and the unconscious nurse was found, so they know they got away. Buffy says they’ve got to find out where they are, but Wesley says there are bigger things for them to worry about right now. He pulls the Watcher’s Diary he and Cordelia recovered from the museum out of his pocket. From the doorway, Angel clears his throat. Everyone turns to find him lurking in the doorway, unable to enter. Buffy realizes and turns to Grant, telling him to invite Angel in. Grant obviously thinks Angel’s a bit strange, but Buffy explains that he can’t come in without the invitation, and only Grant can give it since it’s his house. Grant looks dubious. Cordelia, exasperated, says “Look, just invite him in! There’s nothing weird about having to invite someone in because he can’t do so without your invitation. There’s nothing weird about it! No explanation needed.” Grant continues to look suspicious, but invites Angel in, and the vampire steps over the threshold. Taking pity on her partner, Buffy explains, nodding toward Angel. “Vampire.” At his alarmed expression, she hastens to explain that Angel’s a good vampire. Grant didn’t think such a thing existed. Buffy looks at Angel with a slight smile on her face. “Only one,” she says. Thinking for a moment, she amends it. “Maybe two. Make it one and a half.”

Realizing that everyone is milling around his apartment, Grant recovers his manners and offers coffee. Giles would like some tea, so Grant heads to the kitchen to boil some water. Meanwhile, Wesley has been scanning the diary. He skims through the entries, noting how the killings were becoming more frequent and violent, and how evil seemed to be migrating in to the settlement. As Grant comes to the doorway from the kitchen, Wesley reads aloud a passage written by Isabella’s Watcher, and everyone listens to a dead man’s fear that his slayer is not the one prophesized in the legend. Wesley gets to the last entry, stopping when he realizes it was written just after Isabella’s death. He gets excited, hoping the Watcher detailed how the slayer was able to defeat the First. He has a little trouble translating the Watcher’s Spanish, but the gist of the entry says the slayer was able to defeat the First only by sacrificing herself. “The spell bound el Primer to Isabella; when she died, it had to go with her.” The camera cuts to a close-up of Buffy’s face at this news, then Giles, Angel and Grant. Buffy reveals nothing, but the others all show concern. Wesley goes on to read that because el Primer was not killed in human form, it will be able to rise again. Into the tense silence after Wesley stops speaking, Buffy says they have to find that spell. Everyone is clearly worried about the idea, realizing that it could mean Buffy will die. Giles begins to warn Buffy that it’s not the way to permanently kill the First, but Buffy interrupts him, saying seriously that if worse comes to worse she may need to know.

From the kitchen, the whistle on the tea kettle goes off and Buffy looks up to see Grant in the doorway, looking uncomfortable. He quickly averts his gaze, then turns around and goes into the kitchen to finish the tea. She gets up and follows him. From the window where he is keeping watch, Angel watches, bothered partly by the knowledge that Buffy will sacrifice herself to kill the First, partly jealous of Grant’s role in her life. Shaking it off, he turns back to the window. In the kitchen, Buffy asks Grant if he’s okay. He says he is, but then admits that he’s stunned by everything he’s learned today. She was right, it’s all way bigger than his corruption deal. This is serious stuff. Buffy could die. Buffy cracks that it wouldn’t be the first time. Or hell, even the second. Grant is still surprised that she seems to be willing to sacrifice herself, but Buffy says simply that this is what she does. She turns the tables on him, asking if he’d put himself in danger if he thought it would save her life. Grant says of course he would, she’s his partner. Buffy nods, saying that that’s what it’s like for her and the rest of the world. She’s bound to it, responsible for it. She’d die to protect it.

Cut to the First, who is currently wearing a rather worn-looking Xander suit. It / he turns away from the mirror, saying “See? I told you I was in control of him.” The Commissioner sees, and asks if everything is ready. The First Evil / Xander says it is, and that before dawn, the slayer will come to it. Suddenly Xander sways, and then shimmers. He seems to melt and falls away from the original form of the First, that of Jenny Calendar. She remains standing, smiling cruelly as he falls to the floor, unconscious again. She finishes her sentence, saying that she can feel the evil out there, and soon – like her – they’ll have the run of the dimension.

Cut to the evil vamps and demons and so forth in question, out in the town plundering and pillaging. Several humans walking along a sidewalk are ambushed and carried off, out on Main Street a pack of demons loot the stores. Cut to Fence in his pawnshop. He’s behind the counter fidgeting with something that we can’t see. A particularly loud crashing sound from outside finally cuts through the fog of concentration he’s in, and he looks up, startled. He goes to the window and looks out, his face revealing no expression as he watches a store across from his get set on fire. As the flames rise higher, the light from them flickers across his face before he pulls the shade down and returns behind the counter.

Commercials.


Buffy is dreaming. There is a montage of images, some of which we can't make out. We see the faces of demons and vampires, and look into a dark, deep hole in the ground where something stirs and wakens. There is a cave entrance, glowing from within. A wizened old woman stands next to it, looking at Buffy meaningfully. Buffy starts to head for the cave, but it's gone. Instead she watches as the old woman quietly leaves a leather-bound book in a small cabin and retreats. A moment later a man enters the room and finds the book. It is the Spanish doctor, one of the ghosts responsible for the spell that rid Sunnydale of all humans. Just when Buffy is beginning to realize what has happened, how the Spanish Settlers originally found out about the Primer, the scene changes and there's another montage: There is fighting and violence and bloodshed, Buffy fighting some foe, intercut with blindingly quick glimpses of a sun-lit beach and waves crashing on the shore. After several cuts back to the fighting that grow shorter and shorter in length, Buffy stands on the beach looking out to sea when Angel comes up behind her, slipping his arms around her waist. Buffy turns her head up and toward the side, toward Angel. Their lips are mere inches apart as Buffy opens her mouth. Her eyes are closed, her expression full of bliss. “I dreamed this,” she says. Then she opens her eyes in shock. The scene cuts back to the blood. The fighting, the violence. Then Xander is falling into a precipice, his hands reaching out blindly. He calls out Buffy’s name as he falls into the hellish pit with glowing, red hot magma at the bottom. Right before he is enveloped by fiery death, the scene cuts again and Buffy is in a quiet room with Isabella’s Watcher. She recognizes him, says they found his journal. He tells her that the First possessed him. That Isabella had the chance to end it forever by killing the First while it was in human form, but she couldn’t do it. Instead, she used the binding spell to save him and Marguese, sacrificing herself to buy the world some time until the First could try again. Gravely, he tells her that she’ll have to be stronger than his slayer. She’ll have to kill her friend. Buffy firmly says she won’t do it. Then Buffy will die, he says, and the First will come back again. Buffy says she won’t let that happen, either.

Later, having awakened from her brief nap, Buffy walks back into the living room. The others are talking about the First. Tara wonders why it doesn’t just possess Buffy. From the window, Angel suggests that maybe it can’t possess slayers. Wesley wonders if maybe it’s afraid of slayers because of the legend. “Maybe it’s allergic,” Cordelia says, eyes on the monitor of Grant’s computer. Behind her, Wesley and Giles have been guiding her in the search for information on this binding spell. Buffy starts to walk past them, putting her jacket on. Giles asks where she’s going. She replies that while they search, she’s got to go out and try to help people who are defenseless before all of the evil that’s come to Sunnydale. Giles thinks it’s a bad idea to risk herself, so close to the time when the First will start its ritual. Before a Watcher / Slayer feud can break out, Wesley distracts Buffy by saying they’ve found some reference to the binding spell. He reads from the screen a sketchy description of what the slayer must go through to get the spell, ending on the world “trials.” Giles frowns, says he doesn’t know what that means. He turns to see Angel, looking grim. “I do,” the vampire says.

At Willy’s Place, Dawn leads Willow in. The witch is still panting and grimacing from the pain of the labor. Willy objects to Dawn bringing a pregnant woman into his bar, but Dawn asks him if he’s looked outside lately. There’s nowhere else to take her that’s safe. Willy eyes the girls, then his bar full of patrons. Grudgingly, he suggests that the baby-eating demon get lost. With a grunt of annoyance, the large horned demon rises and stalks out. Dawn helps Willow over to the bar, then supports her as she climbs up. Willy, panicked, says she can’t give birth on the BAR! Dawn loses patience and tells him to shut up and help her, or else Spike will give it to him good when he gets back. The threat is enough to cow Willy, but as he helps the witch lie back on the bar he gets more of a view than he bargained for and pulls back, frantically looking somewhere else, anywhere else. “Oh man,” he despairs, “I’ve seen a lot of stuff in this bar. But that just ain’t natural.”

Cut to the First Evil and the Commissioner arriving at the cave we recognize from Buffy’s dreams, and the flashback at the beginning of the episode. A couple cops are dragging Xander. They drop him at the First’s feet, and the Commissioner asks if she’ll be okay there on her own. The First says she will be. She’d be even better if he could somehow manage to get his bungling team of idiot cops to kill the slayer before she could become a real threat. The Commissioner colors, says he’ll take care of it. He turns and leaves. The First looks down at Xander, lying at her feet, saying he looks kinda cute there, looking like a little defenseless kitten.

Back at Grant’s place, Angel hangs up the phone, having written down an address on a slip of paper. He says he spoke to Lorne, who told him that there are portals all over the place. Buffy reflects, “So, you’ve been through these trials?” Angel says he has, and that he can tell her what to expect, but they’d better hurry. Wesley agrees, and they all head out. Outside, it’s sheer bedlam. Demons are running amok, trashing the town and attacking anyone and everyone they see. Buffy and the gang have to fight off more than a few just to get to the cars. Everyone but Grant piles into Angel’s car, the officer gets into his own to follow them. The scene cuts to them arriving at what appears to be a summer home. It seems to be abandoned, and no one stops the gang as it rounds the corner of the house, heading into the back yard. There’s an in-ground swimming pool located there, although there is no water in it. Tara comments that the people who own the home must not have come to Sunnydale yet. Angel gives Buffy some final, last-minute instructions about the trials she’ll soon be facing as they come to a stop at the edge of the pool. They all gather around, and Buffy gives Angel a “what do I do now?” look. He indicates that she has to step off into the empty pool. When Buffy only looks wary, Grant shakes his head, declaring them both nuts. Angel impatiently says that this is the point. It keeps out the faint of heart. Buffy realizes that this may be her only way to save Xander, so she pauses only a moment before taking a breath and stepping off the ledge.

When she hits, she rolls automatically, absorbing the impact. Instead of being on the floor of the swimming pool, however, when she looks up she sees that she is somehow now in a gently-lit parlor. A voice surprises her from behind and she whirls, only to be confronted by...a man in a butler’s outfit. “Welcome,” he says.


Commercials.


Buffy comments on the décor, but the man is unruffled by her sarcasm and she cuts to the chase. She says she’s here for the binding spell. The man says if she knows what she wants, and she knew how to get here, then she must know what she has to go through to get the spell. Buffy does, and starts rattling them off. Before she even finishes describing the first trial that Angel went through the man starts shaking his head. He realizes now that she’s already been coached on what to expect, but it will do her no good. The trials are different for everyone. Because she’s a slayer, naturally the strength of her opponents would have to be upped, so it would be a fair fight. Buffy picks up on the plural. “Opponents?” she asks warily. She steps hesitantly through the doorway the butler indicates, and notes a form walking toward her out of the shadows. When it comes into the light we can see who it is plainly, and the recognition that flashes across Buffy’s face is instantaneous. It’s the Master.

At Willy’s, Willow relaxes, exhausted, after another contraction fades. She looks around and notices that all of the patrons of the bar have left. She wonders where they all went, and Willy confides that even demons can’t stomach a birth. Willy’s hovering, making a pest out of himself, and Dawn irritably orders him to go boil some water, or something. He asks what it’s for, and Dawn confesses that she’s not sure...but that’s what they always send people on tv to do when they’re getting in the way. Dawn appears surprisingly good at coaching Willow through her breathing exercises, and when the witch asks her how she knows so much about labor Dawn reveals that she used to watch a lot of E.R. when George Clooney was on it. Just then Willow bears down under the pain of another contraction, and with a sudden POOF! One of the barstools turns into a raccoon.


Cut to the gang topside at the pool. Giles, concerned, asks how long this will take. Not knowing that Buffy’s trials are already differing from his own, Angel says it shouldn’t take long. Grant is still incredulous that they’re all letting Buffy do this. He points out that if she fails, she dies. If she manages to live through the trials, all it will gain her is access to a spell that will ensure her death as well. Is that what they all want? It’s not, but Wesley points out that this is what Buffy may have to do to save the world. Tara gently reminds everyone that it’s not the first time. Grant shakes his head...he’s had a lot to absorb all at once, and he is only now beginning to grasp Buffy’s importance. “She’ll be okay,” Angel says, as if he needs to convince himself. “She’ll get through it. She’s gotten through worse than this.”

Down in the room off the parlor, Buffy has gotten hold of a sword that had been hanging on the wall, and uses it to lop off the Master’s head. There’s a moment of silence after he falls to the ground, dead, and Buffy expresses surprise that he didn’t dust. A beat later the Master’s body dissolves and seeps through the floor, vanishing. Buffy suddenly looks up when she hears a step, right into the eyes of Angelus. The vampire swaggers into the room, a smug, confident grin on his face. “Hello, Lover,” he says, his eyes mocking her. Buffy sighs. “Been here, done this,” she says, and in one swift move impales Angelus through the chest with the sword. His eyes go wide, and he falls to his knees, dissolving before he even hits the floor. Having pulled the sword out, Buffy stands there alone again. She speaks to the empty room. “This is it? This is my trial? You’re trying to win with people I’ve already beaten? Good plan, Jeeves.” We see her face as she watches her next adversary approach, and it’s a mixture of annoyance, amusement and determination. “Mayor Wilkins. Didn’t I blow you up once already?”

Cut to topside: The gang is still waiting for Buffy, but they’re no longer alone. They’ve run out of luck in avoiding the melee of violence that has gripped the town, and a large group of demons stumble across the small group of mostly humans out in the open. Fighting ensues, and despite their best intentions, the members of the Scooby gang get separated from one another. Each manages to subdue or kill their attacker, but on the cusp of victory another group of aggressors surround the gang...and this time they’re humans. The police have found them.


Commercials.


Back at the bar, Willow’s powers have gotten totally out of control because of the pregnancy. The place is beginning to look like a pet store, and several bar stools have been turned into shrubbery. Willy is dismayed. Willow apologizes, but she can’t help it. Dawn is still trying to deal with the labor. In between helping Willow with her breathing exercises, Dawn hopes everyone else is okay. Willow says she’s sure they’ll be all right, but she’s obviously worried, too. There’s another contraction.

Cut back to the gang, fighting the cops. For a moment it almost looks as if they might persevere, but then the Commissioner is in the thick of things, directing the assault. His corrupted cops quickly surround the Scooby Gang. Tara starts to mutter a spell under her breath.

Back down in the room off the parlor, Buffy delivers the final blow to Glory, slicing her in half with the sword. Glory looks down at the damage before looking back up at Buffy in astonished rage. “You ruined my dress!” she shouts, and then her torso slides off her lower body and thumps to the ground heavily before dissolving. Buffy addresses the empty room again. “Do we really have to go through them all? I’m getting seriously bored, here. Also I’m kind of on a schedule.” Behind her, the butler walks into the room. He agrees that this level is too easy for her, and welcomes her to level two: “Let’s see if your mind is as quick as your reflexes in battle.” Buffy pales.

Topside. Giles – arms held up like the others in the face of all of the guns aimed at them - manages to run into Tara, interrupting her spell. He says quietly they can’t draw any more attention to Buffy’s location than they already have. Also, Grant has managed to evade the entrapment, and they shouldn’t ruin his chances. Tara desists, and the gang is rounded up and put into the police units. From the other side of the fence on the far side of the yard, Grant watches in silent frustration, but realizes someone’s got to be there when Buffy comes out, if only to tell her what happened.

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