A/N: Uh...A teaser to my upcoming story "Second Wave". Content subject to change, and so is the title. Be nice and understand, yeah? Many thanks to both Clez and NightSlash for their help, intentional or now. Review it or I'll come after you! Ohh, and you can expect the story to be posted around next week, since I have a four day weekend...
A lone figure is moving, how, we don't know. All we do know is that he's moving, as if walking. We pull back, and we see that they are walking through the night, past houses and the bright lights of the gas lamps that line the street. The moon is a full orb behind this figure, dressed in robes the color of midnight, a hood encompassing their face in shadows. Their head is tilted down slightly, and this only serves to block their identity from us.
They near one of the smaller houses on the street. A worn "59" hangs next to the door. The figure raises one arm and presses the doorbell.
We change views and see a family of four, seated around a table. They are having dinner. All is calm, and the little boy, no more than three years old, laughs and spills his soup all over the place, to the laughter of his father, and the withering glances of his wife, who has orange hair with streaks of natural yellow, a bright contrast. The same text appears on the screen.
A distant sound of a doorbell ringing, the redhead father standing up and heading towards the source.
Rodney Skinner opens the door.
The figure, still dressed in black, stands there. Skinner just looks at him, as if asking why they are here in the first place. They then speak.
"Hello, father."
Now we see Skinner once more, but this time he looks younger; there is a more boyish roundness to his face, laughter in his very stance. But we look much closer at his eyes — blue, bright with mischief but dulled by tragedy; only they are the markers of the harsh existence he has known. His age tells us that he is no man, but no boy, either.
We step back a bit and see that this man-child is no innocent; he is dressed in clothes that are too big for him, in desperate need of a wash. We fast-forward a few years.
Now we see him once more, but this time he is talking, full of energy and excitement, gesturing wildly. The person he speaks to, we see as we move back, is a young woman seated on the edge of the bed that Skinner is facing, nodding as the man she loves tells her about everything.
Now, they have finished their talk; Skinner grabs the woman, whose hair is so light a blond that it's almost white. He is not angry; rather, he lusts for her, and her for him. They fall onto the bed as one, passion taking over.
We now see flashes of a pregnancy, then a birth.
There is silence. There is darkness.
It is broken by the screams of a newborn child, a baby boy; his mother, the young woman, holds him in her arms, cradling him, letting him cry. The child is still bloody from his passage through the birth canal.
We come back to the two figures, father and son. They look at each other.
We see troops of every race possible: the Aseyewrn, with their wings, daggers at their hips; vampires, with their bloodlust and pointed fangs; elves, with pointed ears and bows and quivers slung over their backs; the fierce affati, the bird-people almost gone from the world, with their beaks and colorful feathers; Aclida, the fearsome feline race, all claw and teeth; and humans, with no magickal skill whatsoever, with only courage to guide them.
Before them stand a human man, with a baldric at his waist and a broadsword slung across his back. He surveys the troops; they are the last line of defense for two worlds, one of which has no idea what is about to happen.
Quietly, serenely, he picks up the torch that rests besides him on a high pedestal. He lights the torch, a large wooden one, set in a case of metal. He raises it.
"To war!" he declares, and the troops, collective of the remaining races of the world of magicks, roar.
In every war...
More flashes. This time, of a war, fought by the many species. They are vicious, but are cut down by the malevolent Orcs, ugly and dark, killers with no conscience.
The battlefield is littered with corpses; many of them are of the good, killed mercilessly by the orcs. They are dead, the last line of defence for the world of magicks finished.
...There is a victor
This time, we see, gathered, in the same courtyard of stone, are Aseyewrn, vampires, elves, Aclida and humans. All are greatly reduced in number, with the exception of the humans; they have merged forces and overcome differences to fight a common foe.
Seven people...
One man stands on the same raised dais as the commander of the troops had done so, a century ago. On the steps of the dais six others stand, the captains of the companies that will march into war...
Mina Harker.
Dorian Gray.
Allan Quatermain.
Tom Sawyer.
Dr. Henry Jekyll.
Captain Nemo.
...Must lead a world into battle
Rodney Skinner stands on the dais, looking at the troops assembled before him, all dressed in armor of varying designs. Faces stoic, knowing the almost-certain fate that awaited them, but not flinching from their duty as they saw fit.
One man cannot change the past...
Flashes, of the first mission in Venice, then in Mongolia. Racing against the clock to save the Italian city, the exploding of the factory — significant scenes from the first time the League came into play.
We come to where the troops and their leaders are assembled. Skinner stands on the dais still. He turns and lights the torch, pulling it off its place, holding it. All is silent.
...But one man can affect the future
Skinner raises the torch above his head, as another man did a century before him. He shows it to the troops — his troops.
"To war!"
A roar is his answer.
The screen fades out, to a dark inky blackness. Words appear.
SECOND WAVE - Coming Soon