May 2000

Writer: Nick Bryan

Ethan Rayne	Amy Madison	Jonathan Levinson	Tara	Michael Kawer	Marcie Ross

Amy rolled over as the knocking at the door subsided.

"What?" she groaned in her barely-conscious manner.

"It’s Jonathan. Get up! I need you to run an errand?"

She swung her legs over the bed and pulled some clothes out of a drawer.

"What?"

"You ate all the cheese again."

Amy continued to whine as she finished dressing. "Knew I shouldn’t have gone cold turkey on the rat thing. Anyway, why do you need cheese this time in the morning?"

"It’s eleven."

"Oh."

Amy came out of the room. "Anything else?"

"Yeah, grab me this book from the college library. Here’s my card."

Amy looked at the title. "Ben’s Book of Demons and Other Hellspawn." She raised an eyebrow. "Doing your homework?"

"You could say that."

Amy shoved the paper into her bag. "Fine. What are we doing today?"

"That Ethan guy called. Wants a Coven meeting."

"Great! It’s dull to unknown extremes hanging around here all day."

Jonathan rolled his eyes. "Well go out then! Get a life already! Meet people! Sign up for college! Go see your father maybe."

"SO not ready. I’ll just get your book and cheese."

"Whatever."

Amy left, slamming the door slightly behind her.

"Okay," muttered Jonathan, "thing to do: Get Amy a life. Item 62 on the list, after ‘Learn Portuguese’." He paused and looked around. "Item 63: Stop talking to myself."

Amy paced nervously down the path. She was still readjusting to the hustle and bustle of everyday existence after months as a rat. Someone walked to close to her and she jumped. The kid stared at her strangely for a few seconds then walked off.

Amy felt like she was being watched all the time. Life as a rat had been much simpler. And she hadn’t quite kicked the cheese habit that came with being a rat. She bought the cheese. She was tempted to buy another piece for herself, but then she remembered she didn’t have any cash. Great. Now she had to worry about earning money too.

As she entered the library, being on campus reminded her that she had to get in touch with Willow. However, she wasn’t quite ready yet, and Ethan had said that Buffy’s little "Sheep Gang" weren’t to know where they were. So she got the book and headed back. On impulse, she also grabbed a few leaflets from admissions to see what kind of courses she could do. She realised she would have to get some kind of life back together. She started to walk more purposefully. And she was smiling all the way.

Amy saw a cat leaving an alley as she went back to Jonathan’s. This cat then walked proudly around a few more corners before it ran into a demon. The demon snapped his fingers and turned the animal inside out. Just for fun.

The Coven

Episode 2:
"Cheap Laughs"

Featuring:
Elizabeth Anne Allen
Danny Strong
Robin Sachs
AND Amber Benson as Tara

Ethan threw the final piece of his former door into the bin as Tara materialised in his house.

"Hello."

"Tara. Nice to see you. Could you just start getting rid of that broken chair from the meeting room while we wait for the others?"

Tara walked towards it. "Sure." Then she started making gestures and uttering an incantation. The chair disappeared.

"Amazing." Ethan came over and looked at where it had been. "Where did you send it? The local junk yard?"

"The Dimension of shadows, a bizarre parallel dimension situated between our world and that of demons."

"You don’t say."

Ethan had barely finished the final note of sarcasm on these words when Amy and Jonathan appeared.

"Miss Madison."

"Ethan." Amy turned to Jonathan. "You alright? Do you need to barf?"

"I’ll be alright in a minute..."

A creature formed from purest chaos walked the streets in a constantly evolving human form. In came across a man walking home alone in the park. It snapped its fingers as they changed from white to black, and the man became a vampire instantly. Just for fun.

"Won’t anyone be arriving to pick you up, Michael?"

Michael shook his head. "I’ll be fine, Nurse."

"If you say so. The doctors all say you can leave."

"Yeah," muttered Michael as he walked out, "With a little help."

As soon as he was away from the hospital, he summoned up some spirits and with difficulty, he was whisked away.

The Master of the Coven, using the codename Adam, was preparing, trying to use his own magic to repair the damage that the inferior Coven had done to his group. Then their cave was violated. Men wearing black robes entered. The vampire backed away from them.

"Who are you?"

"You are Adam? The Master of the failed Coven?"

Adam nodded.

"We are the acolytes. We have some issues to take up with your rivals. We propose a strategic alliance."

Adam muttered unintelligibly, and finally came out with "Yes....fine..."

"Excellent. We wish to start right away. We are here to return the demon we worship to life. In the process, we will shatter the other group’s spell, and re-instate you as the only Coven in Sunnydale. And you will be able to use your magic to get as much easy food as you want."

The acolytes pushed into the cave brushing Adam aside without a second glance. He snarled and stared after them.

Amy, Tara and Ethan sat in a circle and began to focus, looking across the entire area for magical disturbances.

A matrix began to form between them, but then it disrupted in a whirl of colour. Michael appeared in the middle and looked around at them.

"H.......hi." he managed to mutter before he passed out. Amy got up and ran over to him.

"Michael!"

She propped his head up on a cushion, then looked at him.

His face was slightly blue, and he wasn’t breathing well.

"God," she muttered, "Why’d they ever let him out of hospital?"

Then she found the answer. "He brainwashed them. Great."

Ethan looked down on Michael from where he was standing.

"What happened to him?"

"He was trying to form a Coven with some people. But the vampires decided they didn’t like that, did some damage. He had to put himself into a coma to stop them from killing him."

"I see. And now his body’s too damaged to undo what he did to himself. Not an intelligent move."

"How else could he have survived then, Ethan?"

"Well..."

As Ethan and Amy debated the finer point of Michael’s actions, Tara kneeled down next to him. She waved her hands over him and muttered an incantation. The boy was severely hurt. It would take a massive effort to save him.

"Please be quiet." She asked the others from her kneeling position. Amy had now stood up and was confronting Ethan face to face.

"SHUT UP!" Tara shouted more forcefully.

They did so.

"Thank you. Now, between us, we should be able to bring Michael back to full bouncing around mode, but it will take an effort. Is everyone ready?"

Ethan and Amy muttered something that sounded like a cross between an apology and an acknowledgement.

"Good."

At Sunnydale High School’s shattered remains, footsteps could be heard. But no feet, or any other part of the body, could be seen. Objects were moving. As if they were being picked up and put down. Then a drop of moisture, as if an invisible tear had been cried, appeared on the ground. And a few seconds later, a rock rose from the ground, seemingly of its own accord, and hurled itself through a photograph of Cordelia Chase.

The Coven reformed the circle and the matrix again appeared.

Jonathan muttered "What’s happening now?", but Amy was too busy to answer. A bizarre form of energy started to form in the circle, then this energy began to encase Michael. Soon, he could not be seen at all, just the glowing cocoon in the centre.

"He is healing" announced Tara, "But the process will take time."

"Now that we’ve finished helping those too stupid to help themselves, anyone want to actually do some work?" Ethan suggested in a dry voice.

"Sure. Calm down."

The Coven sat in a circle and concentrated. There were more magical disturbances to be sensed than usual. They were dotted around the city. The energy discharge was massive at each point. Whatever was happening, it was clearly very complicated.

"Wow," breathed Tara, wide-eyed as she said this, "this guy must be powerful."

"Clearly."

"Okay," Jonathan finally exclaimed, after the Coven had concluded commenting on nothingness, "Have I missed something?"

The large tree had a small scorch mark down it from a magical flame of some kind. The chaos creature looked at this, then at the whole tree. It began to shift, and morph into an animal. The now-sentient tree reached out and pulled passing students into it’s gaping mouth. The creature walked away smiling.

As the Coven got up from their circle, Tara began to close down the circle. The matrix started to fold in upon itself again and again, finally disappearing. As Amy and Jonathan began to leave, Tara suddenly cried out.

They whirled around. "What?"

"There’s another one of those disturbance things! Over there!"

They rushed to the window and saw new improved tree waving it’s branches around.

"Is this one of those times that Mother Nature takes revenge on us for polluting the seas?"

"Shut up Jonathan. Can you get us over there Tara?"

She didn’t answer, but simply whisked them to the tree.

Ethan looked over the cocooned Michael.

"Looks like it’s just you and me, mate."

The invisible girl walked slowly across the field. She was going to college. In the literal sense, not the common one. She was going to find Buffy Summers and all her little friends. If they weren’t at the college, there’d be someone there who knew where she was. This seemed like a good plan. Then she’d make the slayer pay. Simple enough.

The majority of the Coven appeared near the tree. Jonathan staggered away, but Amy yanked him back.

"Well, we’re here. Anyone have a plan?"

"Try and turn it back into a normal tree?"

"Good plan."

Amy and Tara concentrated, trying to use a reverse transformation. Nothing happened. So they tried again. Finally, Jonathan cut in. "Ladies? People are dying! Do something."

"WE ARE!" Amy shouted back.

"Doesn’t look like it" Jonathan commented, as the tree continued to eat people.

"Y’know, I can almost see why people who start forest fires do it."

"It’s not a conventional transformation. Someone hasn’t just turned this tree into a monster. Well, they have, but it’s not superficial. It’s permanent."

"So just destroy it."

"It’s shielded against magic."

"Excuse me," Tara spoke up, "enough exposition. We can explain it in full to Jonathan later. But that forest fire thing sounds workable."

"Good. Shall I run and get the matches from the kitchen?" Jonathan offered.

"No need." Amy snapped her fingers and they appeared there. Then Tara grabbed a dry piece of wood from nearby. "Light this."

Amy did so, and then Tara sent it soaring upwards, into the leaves. Luckily, it had been a dry day. The leaves ignited. The tree screamed as it burnt, then turned towards the witches. It reached for them and they tried to run, but it was no use.

They were in its arm and it was lifting them to the mouth. Then its arm started burning, and it and the witches dropped off.

"That was lucky."

"Thank you Jonathan."

The fire was spreading. Tara put it out before it could spread around the campus.

"That could have been bad. We need to find what’s causing these things."

The chaos creature and the invisible girl watched the witches from a distance. Both with some interest. But for different reasons.

Amy waited nervously outside the dean’s office. She was about to try and convince the dean that she should be allowed to enter the college. She had the subtle feeling it wouldn’t be easy. She was right. When she sat down, the dean cleared his throat and began.

"Alright, Miss Madison. We have a few problems here. Although your SAT scores are excellent, and would have gotten you in here, there are a few teething troubles. Firstly, the one about you never graduating High School."

"Well, you see...." But before she could blurt out her carefully prepared cover story, the dean continued.

"And secondly, possibly on a related issue, the tiny problem of you turning yourself into a rat in front of a crowd of onlookers."

Amy’s cover story was more or less useless now.

"Ah" was the best she could come up with. Then she sighed. She had hoped to do this without witchcraft. She stared into the dean’s eyes. He began to say "What are you doing?", but only got to the "are" before he fell silent. Then Amy snapped her fingers.

The dean continued as if nothing had happened.

"So, Miss Madison, although you failed to graduate, we are willing to accept that you were on an extended holiday. So, you will be able to take the courses you picked."

"So, it’s okay I missed graduation?"

"Perfectly fine. Just get your legal guardian to sign this form explaining the circumstances then you can enter the school."

They both stood up, and the dean shook Amy’s hand.

"Welcome to Sunnydale University, Amy Madison."

Amy smiled, but it wasn’t as happy a smile as she would have liked.

As she left the dean’s office her smile faded, and she tried to work out how she was going to tell her dad about everything. Unfortunately, at this point an invisible girl clubbed her over the head with a heavy object and dragged her off.

"I don’t like it..." Tara mused.

"I don’t like it either Tara, but Amy says we have to put up with it because it lets her live in its spare room." Ethan replied, not looking up from the book he was reading.

Tara rolled her eyes. "Not Jonathan! Amy’s not back yet. Doesn’t that strike you as odd?"

"Honestly? No, doesn’t really strike me as anything." Ethan still didn’t look at her.

"Okay. Fine."

Ethan muttered an obscenity, then put the book he had been reading back. "Nothing here. I don’t have much of a reference collection on the occult. Certainly nothing like what my good friend Ripper used to have at the library."

"Who?"

"Never mind."

Meanwhile, Michael’s coccoon continued to glow in the middle of the room.

Outside, the chaos creature smiled in it’s twisted way, then started to walk away from Ethan’s house, changing the pavement into bizarre shapes as it walked on it.

Amy started to stir, then she looked around the room. She seemed to be in a basement, and she couldn’t see anyway out.

"Hi Amy."

Amy jumped. The voice came out of no-where.

"Who are you?"

"Marcie Ross. Remember me?"

"Um.........no, sorry. Where are you, actually?"

"Here." Marcie tapped Amy on the shoulder, and she whirled around, only to be confronted with nothing. Marcie giggled softly.

Amy felt a breeze go past her, then Marcie kicked her leg lightly. Amy looked for her, but she still couldn’t see her. Then Marcie hit her with a swift right handed punch to the face.

Amy recoiled. "What was that for?"

"Oh, just for ignoring me."

"Ignoring you? I’ve never even MET you! Where are you?"

"I’m invisible. Haven’t you guessed?"

"It was coming to me. So, you’re going to kill me because I don’t know who you are? Can you say ‘ego issues’?"

"Can you say facial injury?"

Marcie slashed across Amy’s face, and cut several deep welts into it with her nails, which weren’t cut especially neatly, since they couldn’t be seen. Amy’s face was shoved to the right, and when she looked up again, her eyes were glowing red.

"Enough fun."

"Can I just say something?" Jonathan asked from the side of the room.

"No" responded Ethan quickly, as he cut some sandwiches at the table.

"What is it Jonathan?" Tara muttered.

"Well, it says in this book that...."

Before he could complete his sentence, there was a flash of light, and Amy materialised in the middle of the room. The cuts were still present across her face, and there were light burns on forearms.

"Amy! What happened?"

"Well, I had to burn through these ropes and levitate them around........"

Amy began her explanation, then stopped it. "I’ll just show you."

Something else began to appear in the room. It appeared to be some ropes, tied around air. There was absolutely nothing in the loop. Then the ropes fell to the floor and hit the ground with a thud and an utterance of pain.

"This is Marcie Ross," announced Amy, "She’s invisible."

Eyebrows were raised around the room. "Who?" inquired Ethan.

"I think I knew her..." Jonathan mused.

"Really?" Amy was incredulous. "You mean she tried to kill me because no-one noticed her and it was a complete waste of time?"

"Well, I knew of her. I never actually talked to her."

Amy sighed. "Fine. Now, what do we do with her?"

"Can we make her visible?" asked Ethan.

"Maybe." Tara went over to Marcie and kneeled next to her, staring into where she instinctively knew her eyes were. Then she said a single Latin word. "Video."

Without any flashes of light or strange effects, Marcie Ross blinked back into existence. Jonathan went over to her. "Marcie?"

Her eyes blinked against the light, and when she had adjusted to it, she looked up.

"Who are you?"

Then the door of the room flew open. A few seconds after that, it grew legs and attacked Jonathan. He tried to jump out of the way, but it kicked him. Then it moved towards Tara and Marcie. Then Ethan looked out of the now-empty doorframe. And he saw it.

"That thing? I saw it somewhere....." He muttered a short spell, and a book flew out of the bookcase and into his hand. He leafed through the pages until he found it. He smiled in his self-satisfied way. Then he realised his most powerful Coven member was about to be kicked in by the door monster.

Amy ran over to the hole-formerly-known-as-the-door.

"Anyone got some termites? We need to...........WHAT THE......??!?!?"

She took one look at the chaos creature and went back inside.

"Ethan! Help! Big monster!"

"I know. It’s a chaos creature. Called The Laughter. I believe it’s what’s responsible for the tree thing. It’s basically a mischievous spirit?"

"Mischievous?"

"Yes."

"And it can do anything?"

"Mostly."

"Damn."

Tara was pushing the door back with blasts of energy, but it was still coming. She could try and burn it, but it had to be closer. She grabbed a knife Ethan had used earlier to make sandwiches and then she made it as sharp as possible. The edge was very thin, and could, in theory cut through anything. So she tested it. She hacked the door monster in half. And smiled.

"Violence is easier than I thought it would be."

Then the Laughter entered.

"Or maybe not."

She had another vague idea, but she had little time to carry it out. She grabbed Marcie, slashed through he ropes with the knife, then looked into her eyes and, before she could protest, uttered the counter-spell. "Non Video."

As Marcie faded away, the Laughter was upon them. He looked at Tara with his dark eyes, and the magical power started to pour out of her. Then to engulf her.

Amy and Ethan moved to help Tara, but as they did, Amy shouted to Ethan.

"Why are all the monsters and stuff going after Tara?"

"Because she’s the most powerful, probably."

"Thanks a lot Ethan. So how do we kill it?"

"Puncture it and channel the energy out. Maybe."

"Great. Where did Tara put that knife?"

Amy looked around, but it was no-where in sight…

"And where did the invisible girl go?"

Tara was screaming now, as the energy poured out of her, then back into her, at a higher speed than she could cope with. The energy was streaking around the room before pouring back into Tara. Amy tried to run over to her, but Ethan pulled her back.

"Don’t go in there! If one of those energy things hits you, you’ll start taking the channelling as well. You can’t cope with it any more than she can."

"Why isn’t it hurting that chaos thing?"

"He’s pure energy. He can handle it."

As Ethan and Amy backed away, and Jonathan stayed in the corner, Marcie crawled closer. The Laughter hadn’t seen her. She drew back the knife and swung it in. The Laughter screamed as energy flowed out of it. Marcie ran back.

Amy started to raise her hands. "Here’s our chance to help!"

She began to collect the energy together. Ethan sighed and started to lend a hand. The energy transfer from Tara stopped. She fell and lay still trying to catch her breath. She began to crawl away from the Laughter.

Then the energy sphere being composed by Amy and Ethan started to triple in size every few seconds.

"Ethan!" Amy shouted out as her head was struck with searing pain. Her eyes started to bleed.

"We have to get it out of here!"

Ethan tried to rouse Tara to get the dying monster out, but she could barely stand. Ethan and Amy couldn’t afford to deviate any energy from stabilising the sphere. Then the cocoon cracked open.

Michael looked around. He felt better. At his full power potential. Then he saw the Laughter excreting its energy all over the room, Amy and Ethan trying to keep it together and Tara collapsed. He had heard Ethan’s cry, and he knew what he had to do. He closed his eyes and raised his hands.

Ethan couldn’t take much more. He prepared to break contact, when the monster began to fade. Slowly at first, then it just disappeared. And the chaos energy went with it. Michael let out a relieved groan as he dropped the spell. Amy passed out and Ethan tried to shake away the headache.

"Hi everyone" Michael smiled.

Ethan raised an eyebrow. "Nice to see you, Michael. Thank you for that. Where did you send it?"

Michael smiled again. "Sent it as far away as possible. It’s somewhere on Earth, not sure where. I couldn’t transcend dimensions with it, unfortunately."

Tara got up slowly, still feeling weak.

"Is that it then?"

Ethan looked at the book. "Not sure. I think there might be a negative effect if you don’t manage to channel all the energy off. We left it still going."

Jonathan came out from his hiding place. "So what happens now?"

Ethan looked alarmed. "Nothing good. From what I can get out of this volume, the Laughter has a built in Last Laugh. If you don’t channel everything off properly, it creates a big outflow of chaos energy. Within about a day, the whole world will be consumed."

"What?" The whole Coven, except Amy who was unconscious, were now alert.

"How do we stop it?"

"What will happen?"

"Firstly, no idea how to stop it, secondly, just general random occurrences. Anything could happen. Same sort of things it had been doing before. Just all over the world."

"A whole planet of people-eating trees?"

"Exactly."

"Wow. That could really cut into my free time."

They drifted apart to contemplate this. As they sat there, Ethan and Tara trying to look a solution up in Ethan’s limited book collection, Amy started to stir.

"What.............Did we win?"

"Think that kinda depends on who you ask. You alright?" Michael asked as he helped her up.

"Fine. Having a ball. So, what’s up?"

Ethan turned over a few pages. "Oh, just the approaching end of the world."

Amy looked towards him immediately. "WHAT?"

"Yeah, just a kinda run-of-the-mill apocalypse. Nothing drastic."

And Ethan proceeded to explain it once again.

The meeting dispersed. Michael went back to his dorm, Tara went wherever she went and Jonathan, Amy and Marcie went to Jonathan’s house.

Jonathan unlocked the door and invited them in.

"Right. Sit wherever you like."

Marcie strolled in, smiled lightly at him and sat on the sofa, looking somewhat nervous. She had been made visible again by Tara, and her clothes, which she had been wearing ever since she became invisible were messy and torn.

"Amy, could you lend Marcie some clothes?"

"Why do I have to....." Jonathan looked at her more pointedly. "Okay, okay."

She rushed off to get something, and Marcie finally spoke to Jonathan.

"So you did notice me?"

"Yeah. Sometimes. But you were always talking to Cordelia and friends, so I just placed you along with them."

Marcie lay back on the sofa. "So I thought no-one noticed me and became invisible. Perfect."

Jonathan thought for a few seconds. "But no-one noticed me either, and I didn’t turn invisible?"

"No?"

"No, I just tried to kill myself. So I guess that doesn’t make me that well-adjusted a person either."

"I think I beat you on that one. I became homicidal and tried to kill numerous people."

"Really?"

"Yeah. Buffy stopped me. I came here today to make Amy tell me where I could find Buffy to get revenge."

"And I didn’t."

Marcie and Jonathan looked around to see Amy behind them at the door.

"Here’s your clothes."

"Thanks." Marcie muttered, before taking them and leaving.

Amy sat on the sofa where Marcie had been, and both she and Jonathan sat in a thoughtful silence. Then Amy voiced her concerns,.

"She’s not stable Jonathan."

"I think she’s alright."

"She tied me up and cut me!"

"Just let it go Amy."

Amy stood up. "SHE’S EVIL!"

"Of course she is. Calm down."

Amy took one last look at him, then stormed out of the house. Marcie strolled in, wearing her new jeans and T-Shirt.

"Everything alright?"

"Just perfect."

Meanwhile, Ethan continued his research. Fianlly, Ethan slammed his book shut.

"I think that’s the lot" he muttered. He needed more resources to find out how to stop the world being destroyed. Finally, he had an idea and ran from the room.

TO BE CONTINUED

NEXT, IN AN ALL NEW COVEN: Ethan finally works out a way to stop the world being destroyed, but is there a price to be paid? Meanwhile, Amy tries to put her life back together, and Tara’s past comes back to haunt her. All next month in "The Last Laugh Of The Laughter."

Did you like this episode? E-Mail Nick and let him know!

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