1.10 School Daze

Quotes

SpacyChase: "But Fred – you left Ginger on the floor." [re: Geoff asking her to dance after dancing w/Strella]

PeanutGalleryChase: "All that incense must make you horny."

Gabe to Jade: "That's right – pogo with me, baby!"

PeanutGalleryDeaver: "Gotta have friction –" [re: Raveena and Ethan's conversation about tutoring physics]

Gabe: "C'mon, pogo like you mean it!"

Nikki: "I should let you get back to your party." Raveena: "Oh please don't send me back in there!"

Raveena to Rushees: "You guys should take a trip to Portland."

Nikki to Deaver: "I'm young, I'm smart, and I'm rich."

Nikki: "You are my first boyfriend." Deaver: "I'm sorry you aren't my first girlfriend. And I'm sorry my first girlfriend tried to kill you."

Nikki: "There are weird people at the house, who are weirder than the weird people at the house. Sometimes I get the feelings of the – weird."

Chase [sighing]: "Well, this is McKennitt." [re: Nikki's revelation that she is empathic]

Raveena [before killing a vamp]: "Hey! This dress was from Portland!"

Raveena to Geoff: "Honey, you just have to go a little lower." [re: aiming for the heart]

Raveena: "I'm wet and I'm 18."

DAY 1:

Nikki cheerfully bounds down her stairs, waves to her cleaning crew, gets her lunch and a kiss from the cook, and heads out the door and off to Phillipi. She runs into Strella & Raveena walking to rush on the way, and offers them a ride to convocation, although she is still very cold to Strella. She orders Strella to stay away from Geoff, and doesn't get much other than a smirk in response.

Raveena and Strella pick up their schedules and a bottle of water to keep cool on the walk to their first party. The day is a whirlwind of perfectly manicured hands and smiling faces and names. Some of the other rushees surprise Raveena with their rude candidness - she overhears one girl criticizing the color of the walls and one of the houses and others criticizing the clothes of some of the other rushees. The last party on the list for Strella and Raveena is the Kappa Kappa Gamma House. Strella seems the most excited about this one. The mood here is more intense, and once again Raveena hears strange comments whirling around her: girls earnestly telling the Kappas that they will die or kill themselves if they don't get into this sorority.

Deaver is having his first day of class of the fall semester. He decides the best way to start a physics course is with a demonstration, and he brings out a bucket of liquid nitrogen. He has poured it out on the desk in front of him and is sliding items across it when he looks up and suddenly notices Nikki in the center of the front row. He knocks the bucket of liquid nitrogen over onto the floor, and starts sliding around uncontrollably behind the desk. Class ends a bit early, and Deaver runs to his office before Nikki can catch him. [Suddenly cold feet has a whole new meaning.]

Nikki corners Deaver in his office shortly after class. She expected him to be excited that she was going to be in his class, but instead he is greatly distressed. Deaver tries to explain university policy on dating students, and that it could cost him his job. Tells Nikki that he still desperately wants to be with her, but he can't as long as she is in his class; he just got kicked out of one university and he doesn't want to get kicked out of another. Nikki is crushed, explaining to him that she has to take this class this semester to pursue her degree in architectural engineering. He knows there is no other teacher teaching this class this semester - so he tells her that they will just have to put their relationship on hold until the semester is over. She leaves totally distraught.

Strella and Raveena have had a long day, and are at their sixth party at the Kappa house when Nikki arrives looking for Raveena. Raveena left her purse in Nikki's car that morning. She comes in to the Kappa house to find her, still sobbing. Raveena comforts her and escorts her outside, where Nikki explains what happened. Raveena gently tries to defend Deaver and explain the policy. She points out to Nikki that Deaver wouldn't be the man she loved if he had agreed to be involved with one of his students. They agree to talk later, and Raveena grimly returns to the party.

DAY 2:

Phillipi has four rush parties on day two, and Strella and Raveena have two of them together, including Kappa. Raveena decides to attempt to sabotage her own chances at rush by wearing her hair in pigtails and doing her make up like a five year old who snuck into her mother's Forbidden Drawer. Strella takes one look at Raveena and is completely appalled.

At the second party of the day for Raveena, something very strange happens. Raveena overhears one rushee says cruelly to another, "Why don't you just go jump in the pool?" And the girl does it! After a moment of total bafflement, a sorority girl jumps in after the rushee, who still hasn't come up for air. She manages to drag the girl out of the pool. During the third party the word is spread over the ever-present bottles of water - by fourth party, the whole world is talking about it.

Raveena takes her hair down and rubs off the worst of the makeup before the fourth party: Kappa house. Strella and Raveena reconvene there. Strella eyes Raveena from afar before approaching, relieved to see that Raveena has toned down the makeup. Raveena calls her on it, and Strella cheerfully admits that Raveena looked hideous that morning [refreshingly honest, our Strella].

The party is proceeding quite normally, until the second strange event of the day happens - a rushee who is convinced that she won't get into Kappa throws herself off the upstairs balcony where a group of rushing folk is congregated. Raveena's fast reflexes get her to the stairs in time to catch the girl as she pitches over the rail headfirst. Chaos ensues. After things calm down a bit, a young woman approaches Raveena, praising her for her quick thinking. She tells Raveena that she is still unsure about this whole rush thing, but is thinking about doing a service fraternity instead. Since Raveena seems to be the helpful type, would she be interested in attending an info session that evening? Raveena says yes, and the girl tells her to be at in front of the Admin Building at 8:00 pm.

In front of the Admin Building, 8:00 pm. Raveena is the only one standing there. Not another soul in sight. Raveena is unsure why she was put up to this, and turns to return to her dorm. All of the sudden, a vamp dragging a screaming girl comes in to view. Raveena immediately springs into action, dusting the jerk quickly. She tries to help the girl to her feet - the poor thing is in complete shock. Raveena supports the girl under one arm and starts quickly towards the dorms.

Two guys watch from the darkness. "Nice reflexes. That must be her. Should we get her now, or later?" The second responds, "Why not? Let's go." They move out into the moonlight.

As Raveena is carrying the frightened girl, two guys approach. They call out a hello, and ask Raveena if she can help them with something – over there. Raveena feels somehow hazy, and finds herself agreeing to help. She sets the girl down on the pavement and starts off with the two guys. Before she gets too far away, she shakes off the cloudy feeling, excuses herself, and goes back to the girl hurriedly.

Along a path that runs on the outer edge of the Admin Building, a snuffling and disconsolate Nikki is taking an evening stroll. She sees Raveena leave the terrified girl and walk off with the two strangers with great concern. Something isn't right here.

DAY 3:

It is the second day of Deaver's Physics class. Alex can't help but notice that Nikki is nowhere in sight. His lecture is much less enthusiastic than usual. After class is dismissed and Deaver is cleaning up his materials, Nikki comes in to the room, looking tired. She looks at him and says, "You didn't look at your roll again today, did you?" Deaver admits that he didn't. Nikki tells her that she decided that the Chemical Engineering department desperately needs her, and she can always get another degree later. So she is no longer his student. A slow and brilliant grin crosses Deaver's face, and he scoops her up and spins her in a circle, knocking a pricey beaker off the desk. Neither one notices or cares.

Cut to Nikki's bedroom later that evening. [Another shirtless man alert!] Nikki starts suddenly and with a gasp asks Deaver what time it is. He tells her it is close to 8:00 pm. The rush party! Nikki quickly tries to explain to Deaver the she sensed something very, very wrong with the rushees at the Kappa house when she met Raveena there to return her purse. She sensed it again when she saw Raveena last night by the Admin Building. Nikki has a talent for – sensing things. She tells Deaver that they have to call the Gang and get to the Kappa house as quickly as possible – Raveena and Strella will be at that party, and they have to get to them before anything bad happens. They reach Gabe, Chase, and Geoff, and the three agree to meet them [after lots of long-winded cryptic ramblings by Nikki] at the house in fifteen minutes. Deaver grabs a sword from the gallery before they leave Nikki's place – just in case.

Rush is finally drawing to a close, and Strella and Raveena are at the Kappa house for their second and final party of the evening. Raveena is dressed in her Portland best. The girls leave their purses at the door. They are offered refreshments, and are escorted through the house to the back yard, where chairs are set up all around the pool. The ceremony begins.

The Gang comes to a screeching halt in front of the Kappa house. They stride towards the front door, where a well-dressed sorority girl who is keeping an eye on the rushees' purses stops them. Gabe fakes undue interest in the contents of the purses, and the girl is so convinced that he is about to walk off with them that the others walk directly past the girl and into the house. She calls after them, but doesn't want to leave Gabe here with the purses. Eventually Gabe cheerfully tells the girl that she can keep them, and he goes inside after the others.

In the back yard, the gang finds all the rushees sitting in rows, with their water bottles next to their chairs in exactly the same place. Every one of them has a glazed expression, including Raveena and Strella. Deaver assesses the situation and realizes that the water must be somehow responsible. Just as our heroes step out into the yard, approximately half a dozen vampires come over the outer wall and attack the girls. Most of the sorority members seem to be coherent and therefore freaked, but the rushees sit like docile lambs while one after another becomes dinner.

Nikki rushes around ordering sorority girls and rushees alike into the house as quickly as possible. Chase and Geoff smash a couple of chairs, and after Chase does a quick scan to make sure none of the vamps are anyone she knows, they team up on the closest one with their makeshift stakes. Deaver and Gabe take a second. Raveena looks on bemusedly. Exasperated and confused by Raveena's inaction, Geoff calls out to her, ordering her to start fighting vampires. She docilely complies, and starts after the largest of the vamps.

The vamps are quickly dealt with, and the gang is left with a pliable group of sorority wannabes. To test the situation further, Gabe asks Raveena to get in the pool. She does so without hesitation. They ask her to get out again. Hmmm. Geoff and Chase grab one of the bottles of water and head to the lab at the hospital to see if they can work up an antidote.

While at the lab, Geoff gives a halting speech aimed at the beaker on the table in front of him about Eric's concoctions, and that he doesn't know what he's doing, and that Chase should be careful. He doesn't give details, though. Upon microscopic inspection, there is indeed a compound additive in the bottled water - Geoff has found traces of it before at the morgue and has been studying it. He hasn't figured out what it is, but he has a rough idea of what it does, and he's been able to work a little with and around it. He quickly comes up with something that should work as an antidote. They test both water and antidote on Chase, and take the successful result back to the Kappa house.

Meanwhile, at the house, Nikki has managed to corral everyone indoors. Chase and Geoff arrive and start administering the antidote. When they realize that they'll have to hit every rush party on campus to undo all the damage, they decide to deliver anonymous kegs that contain the antidote to every house for bid day the next morning instead.

Gabe places a framed picture in a place of honor in his dorm room: it's a shot of himself, surrounded by the entire sorority of Kappa Kappa Gamma smiling into the lens. He smiles to himself.

Cut to the hills outside McKennitt. The town is a postcard spread out below the two cloaked women gazing down on it. The one turns to the other and says, "It's time." They begin to walk towards the town. As they disappear down the hill, the other cloaked figure wonders aloud, "Do you think there will be any cute boys here?"

FINIS.