Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
1
NARRATOR: Sara Pezzini,
a New York City detective
drawn into a chance encounter
with a supernatural weapon.
Each day, each mystery, each encounter,
will ultimately reveal her true destiny.
MAN:
Rintrah roars and shakes his fires
In the burdened air;
The sneaking serpent walks
SARA:
It all started three weeks ago.
That's when I first encountered
the Witchblade.
It saved my life.
Since then, I've learned
a little more about the Witchblade
from one of
the city's most powerful men
You can use the Witchblade
to pierce the veil of the senses.
SARA:
- lost my partner
found out who killed
my father
[GUNSHOT]
and met some very
strange people.
Today is gonna be a tough one.
Your explanation
of what happened at the Rialto
leaves much too much
to the imagination.
I don't like to have to
use my imagination, detective.
Five men were killed
and partially dismembered.
Traces of an unidentifiable metal
were found in their bodies
and your new partner, Jake McCartey,
can't give us any information
except that a man dressed in black
knocked him out.
Captain, they killed my partner
right before my eyes.
[GUNSHOT THEN MAN YELLS]
I honestly don't know exactly
what happened after that.
Captain Dante
in Detective Pezzini's defense,
we took 14 weapons off of Gallo's men.
[GUNFIRE]
It was a ballistic free-for-all.
Ballistics don't explain the wounds
that came from some kind of a blade.
[MAN YELLS]
All right.
What about this man in black
that hit McCartey?
Did you happen to see him?
[JAKE SCREAMS]
Answer the question please, detective.
I don't know who knocked Jake out, sir.
Pezzini, you're hiding something.
I don't know what, but I'm gonna find out.
For someone who just lost a partner
you seem remarkably uncommunicative
about what happened.
You're a lot like your father.
A loner.
A rogue.
You've got absolutely no right
to talk about my father like that.
- Who the hell do you think you are?
- Your new boss.
Excuse me?
Captain Siri's retiring.
I'll be heading up Homicide
as well as Special Investigations.
Your future with this department
is riding on the decision of this board.
We'll try to be quick, Miss Pezzini.
Thank you
Mr.
Dante.
[SIGHS]
JAKE: Hey, Pez, what do you say
I buy you some lunch after we get changed?
Let her walk on this.
Let the feud die.
I can't do that, Joe.
Look, you do this for me,
and I owe you big.
I do this for you, I'll collect big.
[CHATTERING OVER RADIO]
You're wearing the Witchblade.
That's why you can see me.
Keep it on.
DISPATCHER [OVER RADIO]: Units 32
and 33, burglary reported at 2nd and 11th.
Requesting assistance.
Please respond.
You okay?
I've never been okay.
OFFICER [OVER RADIO]:
Dispatch, we have a canine
I can't believe Joe is retiring,
and I cannot believe
I had to find out like that.
Yeah, that pretty much sucks.
Sure does.
Thanks for the lunch offer, Jake.
Oh, hey, it's the least I can do.
You are my partner.
Ex-partner from the looks of it.
I'm sure they'll reinstate you
before we even get to the fortune cookies.
You know what? Whatever.
I could use a break.
DANNY:
Embrace your destiny, Sara.
[GUNFIRE]
OFFICER [OVER RADIO]: Dispatch, shots
fired at the corner of Bleecker and George.
All units please respond.
[SIREN WAILING]
[ENGINES REVVING]
[GUNFIRE]
[GRUNTS]
[GRUNTING AND YELLING]
[SIREN WAILING]
Police! Stop!
- You okay?
- Yeah.
Go, go, go.
[GUNFIRE]
SARA: How's your arm?
JAKE: Ah, just a flesh wound.
You all right?
Yeah, lost him.
He was good.
Sure you're okay?
I've never been okay.
SARA:
I hear that.
Fill me in.
He's alive.
He was dead by the time I got there.
Broken neck.
He never made it out of the tunnel.
The witness said
there were four people involved.
Said it looked like
some kind of an ambush.
Three bikers against
a guy dressed in black.
Said the guy in black
caught the bullets in his hands.
Doesn't look like the most
reliable witness in the world.
No kidding.
A young woman
was caught in the crossfire.
She's dead too.
[OFFICERS CHATTERING]
Waiting to confirm
casualty counts, sir.
The shadows of the valley fear evil.
Black Dragon.
Fearless.
[MAN PANTING]
[MAN GRUNTS]
Come not between
the dragon and his wrath.
[GASPS]
MAN: All that can be annihilated
Must be annihilated
The negation must be destroyed
To redeem the contraries.
All that can be annihilated
Must be annihilated
The negation must be destroyed
To redeem the contraries.
[KNOCKING ON DOOR]
Yeah, it's open.
JOE:
Had to say goodbye.
Look, I wanted to tell you myself
but Dante beat me to the punch.
- Yeah, he's good like that.
I'm not dying, Pez, I'm retiring.
I have a phone, you know.
Sure.
We'll talk at Christmas
and then see each other at cops' funerals.
- Sara.
- Uh
I've seen your mug every day
for six years, Joe.
I'm just, uh
I'm gonna miss it, that's all.
Especially if I do get
reinstated, heh.
You will, believe me.
Come here.
SARA:
Hmm.
What, 20 years in service, and that's all
you're bringing home with you?
No, I'm leaving this here with you,
as per instructions from James Pezzini.
I believe there is some information
in here about your birth parents.
Pass, Joe.
Jim Pezzini was my father.
I could care less about some
stranger who left me on a doorstep.
- Come on, Sara.
- No.
Don't push it, Joe.
I've had a hard day.
I'll call you next week.
- We'll have lunch.
- Great.
So long, Pez.
Bye, captain.
[DOOR OPENS]
[DOOR CLOSES]
Joe
A bizarre sequence of events
on Manhattan's Lower East Side
has left two men
and one woman dead.
At approximately 11 A.
M.
, shots were
fired in this alley just behind me.
Mute.
Freeze.
It's not true what they say.
A picture is worth a million words.
How could things possibly get worse?
DANNY:
Want a list?
SARA: If I didn't know you
were a hallucination
I might actually be glad to see you.
However, under the circumstances
I am starting to believe
that I really am insane.
There's a fine line
between clarity and insanity, Pez.
Ha.
And I've obviously crossed it.
No, you just need to work on
your confusion tolerance a bit.
- My what?
DANNY: Confusion tolerance.
The ability to endure confusion.
[PHONE RINGING]
- Hello?
JAKE [OVER PHONE]: Hey, how are you?
Confused.
JAKE:
I've got good news, partner.
Partner.
Partner.
Captain Dante wanted me
to be the one to tell you.
You're back on.
You there?
Yeah.
Thanks, Jake.
MAN: Rintrah roars and
shakes his fires
In the burdened air;
The sneaking serpent walks.
Hungry clouds swag on the deep.
The swirling viper strikes
And the blood-red ice cracks.
[GROWLS]
[YELLS]
It's strange,
but it comes from a good source.
It seems the two dead guys were in
an experimental warfare program
where troops were used as guinea pigs.
They were given drugs
and made to watch films designed
to induce obedience and aggression.
What, like South Park reruns?
I'm serious.
It was an internationally
recruited unit.
They also went through extremely realistic
and dangerous war games.
The name of the unit
was the Black Dragons.
Black Dragons.
The guy I shot
was mumbling something about dragons.
Plus, that other guy had a dragon tattoo
on his neck.
Exactly.
There were 11 men
in the Black Dragon unit.
The program was disbanded
three years ago.
As of today,
only two of the 11 are still alive.
The others have all died under
mysterious circumstances in the past year.
The two Black Dragons left alive are
a guy named Hector Mobius, a.
k.
a.
Moby
and a guy named Nottingham.
My guess is that one of them
is responsible for the dead girl
and the lead that went
through my shoulder yesterday.
You got federal connections
you're not telling me about?
I wish.
[COMPUTER BEEPS]
Good morning, officer.
Mr.
Irons is expecting you.
Somehow that doesn't surprise me.
Thank you.
[TICKING]
Do you like the visions,
or are they making you nervous?
I came here to talk about
Ian Nottingham.
The visions make some wielders paranoid,
but you should trust them.
They are showing you things
that are real.
As real as what you would normally see,
if not more so.
Yeah, that makes sense.
Common sense has never been a reliable
guide to understanding the universe.
I'm not trying to understand the universe,
Mr.
Irons.
I'm trying to solve a crime.
You see things
that other people don't, Sara.
You see the periphery, the fringes,
the faces in the shadows.
Mightn't this ability
help you solve your crimes?
Mightn't you tell me where I can find
your boyfriend, Ian Nottingham?
Ian is his own man.
He is in my employ,
although not in that capacity.
As you've observed,
he's got an independent streak.
I try not to micromanage him.
Do you know anything about
Nottingham's military background?
RECEPTIONIST [OVER INTERCOM]:
Greg Meady on the line.
Oh.
Perhaps you'd like to come by my home
this evening.
I could tell you more then.
Why don't you
just have Nottingham call me?
[PHONE RINGS]
Homicide, McCartey.
Yeah, got any info?
Yeah, I couldn't find anything
on Nottingham, but check this.
I just got an anonymous email response to
an online search about the Black Dragons.
It said to check out a space
in Tribeca, 111 George Street.
- That's right by the crime scene.
- Exactly.
I'll meet you there.
[SIGHS]
- Weird.
- Yeah, no kidding.
Why would he leave these?
I don't know.
MARY POPPINS [ON RECORDING]:
In every job that must be done
there is an element of fun.
[ROCK MUSIC PLAYING
ON HEADSET]
The Dragons of wrath are wiser
than the horses of instruction.
Wow.
It's like some overamped homemade
motivational film.
It makes you want to hit something.
Let me see.
[ROCK MUSIC PLAYING
ON HEADSET]
Whoa.
[CELL PHONE RINGS]
SARA:
Hello.
MAN [OVER PHONE]: The roaring
of lions, the howling of wolves
and the destructive sword
are portions of eternity
too great for the eye of man.
Who is this?
MAN: A dead body revenges
not injuries.
[DIAL TONE HUMS]
SARA:
Hey, Jake?
Jake.
JAKE: What?
- Let's get out of here.
Whew.
- I wanted to see the rest of that.
- That place was creeping me out.
While you were watching, I got this weird
phone call.
I think it was from Mobius.
JAKE:
What's up with the dragon imagery?
SARA:
Not sure.
He's on a mission.
The question is, what mission?
JAKE: I wish we had a clue
about the other guy, Nottingham.
Can't seem to find out anything
about him.
- Wonder if he's working with Moby.
- Yeah, me too.
Catch you back at the office.
[CELL PHONE RINGING]
MAN [OVER PHONE]: You're in danger.
SARA: From?
MAN:
Mobius.
You killed his comrade.
Don't get on your motorcycle.
Walk away.
SARA: What?
MAN: Walk away now.
- Why should I trust you?
- Sara, start running.
Confusion tolerance, my ***.
COMPUTER:
Blueprint loading.
Sending mail.
You're gonna love this.
We just
got another anonymous e-mail.
I bet it's from Moby.
He set us up at George Street.
What do you mean?
Just an instinct.
What else you got?
Guess who had a contract
with the Defense Department
till three years ago,
according to this e-mail?
Vorschlag Industries.
Vorschlag, as in Kenneth Irons?
The same.
Battle-simulation software.
They also provided the drugs
for the Black Dragons unit.
Supposedly, Irons was deeply involved
in the research and the training.
IRONS: Yes, my company
was involved with the military.
And, yes, we did develop
aggression-enhancing substances
but they were also
intelligence-enhancing.
The Pentagon specifically requested
our services, and we provided them
but to my deep regret, there were
occasionally unfortunate side effects.
Delusions of grandeur,
excessive aggression, paranoia.
Warfare is a messy business,
not unlike police work.
Is there anything that you can
tell me about Hector Mobius?
He is extremely intelligent,
highly skilled as an operator
and, uh, totally insane.
Ian Nottingham, on the other hand, was an
example of the training working perfectly.
He is both lethal and loyal.
- So the other members weren't loyal?
- Oh, yes, they were, to each other.
Which is part of the training.
Unfortunately, most of them became
exceedingly dangerous and delusional.
Have you ever eaten monkey's brains?
What?
IRONS: They are considered
a delicacy in Burma.
What does that have to do
with anything?
You think you want direct answers
to direct questions.
I know I do.
Where is Ian Nottingham now?
Come with me, Sara.
Leave your pedestrian war zone behind.
Let's travel the world together.
Learn together.
Prepare for greatness together.
That's quite a generous
offer, Mr.
Irons.
Just you and me
and the Witchblade.
Don't think I'm the only
one after it.
You should let me take you under
my wing, protect you.
SARA: Actually, I think that you
need protection, Mr.
Irons.
I think that you were deeply involved
in the Black Dragons program.
I think that the last standing member,
other than Nottingham
has you in his crosshairs,
and I think Nottingham
has systematically eliminated
the rest of the unit.
Now, I don't know what kind of private war
you have going on here, and I don't care.
I've got two homicides and a wounded
partner, and if I were you
I'd be looking over
my shoulder.
A lot.
As long as Ian Nottingham is on the job,
I have nothing to fear.
Have you ever eaten monkey's brains?
Have you ever eaten
monkey's brains?
[PHONE RINGS]
Yeah, morgue.
Vicky Po.
Yeah, Vic, it's Pez.
I need you to check the brains
of the two guys we brought in.
- Their brains? Why?
Because I asked you to.
Okay, well,
it'll probably be just one brain
since there's not much left
of number two.
[TAPPING ON DOOR]
VICKY:
Hey.
So, uh, how did you know?
- Know what?
- The brain examination.
Your, uh, dead guy's brain was
tweaked.
Do you wanna go see it?
Uh, no.
No, thanks.
I'll take your word for it.
Okay, look.
His R brain
or his reptilian brain,
was much larger than usual.
- His reptilian brain?
- Yeah, it's this part of the brain
left over from when we crawled
from the ooze.
But it's the source
of all fear and aggression.
So?
VICKY: So this guy was
probably really smart.
Also really dangerous.
He had an inordinate amount of glial
cells, which are neural connectors.
Basically, his whole sub-brain
was turbocharged.
A brain like this would be very sensitive
to certain frequencies of sound
as well as strobing lights.
In Tokyo, just three years ago,
went into simultaneous seizures while
watching light strobing from a cartoon.
So a guy like my victim could
either be energized or disabled
depending on the sights and sounds
around him?
There is a school of thought
that postulates
that our fear of the reptiles
is really just a fear of ourselves
the reptilian part of ourselves.
So you mean, like, why people
get freaked by snakes and lizards?
VICKY:
Yeah.
Yes, exactly.
The history of evolution is synonymous
with the development of the brain.
What this corpse shows
is that someone's been playing God
trying to rewind
and fast-forward evolution
all at the same time.
[SIGHS]
DANNY:
Confusion tolerance, Pez.
Hey, it's just another boring day.
Enlarged reptilian brains
ghosts, nightmares, hallucinations,
the Witchblade.
Nothing confusing there.
So enlighten me, wise Asian master.
So foul a sky clears
not without a storm.
What does that even mean?
How you doing?
Why do you think Moby
is after Kenneth Irons?
Maybe he holds him responsible
for the side effects
of the Black Dragon training.
- Maybe the side effects have made him
- Insane.
That writing on the wall that said,
"Fight fire with fire.
"
Moby thinks he is both the dragon
and the dragon slayer.
Hello, boys.
On the hungry craving wind
My Spectre follows thee behind.
Nice to see that you have remained true
to your poet-warrior training.
If the fool would persist in his
folly he would become wise.
The weak in courage
is strong in cunning.
If the lion were
advised by the fox
he would be cunning.
The fox condemns the trap,
not himself.
Active evil is better
than passive good.
[SPEAKING IN FRENCH]
JAKE:
So if Irons is the big nasty dragon
do you think he needs protection
from this lunatic?
He's got the best protection
money can buy.
If that Moby guy was after me,
I'd want an army.
I gotta go see the doc again.
Back in a couple hours.
Stay safe.
Yeah.
Later.
The iron hand crushed
the tyrant's head
And became the tyrant
in his stead.
No bird soars too high
If he soars with his own wings.
You took my wings.
I gave you your wings.
What is it that you want?
Repentance and revenge.
It is easier to forgive an enemy
Than a friend.
[PHONE RINGS]
MOBY [OVER PHONE]: Without his
flame, the dragon is nothing.
I'm afraid
you're mixing your metaphors, son.
[YELLS]
It all makes sense.
You are the dragon.
He is your flame.
And Sara Pezzini is the maiden.
Only you have corrupted
her somehow.
So now she, too, will die.
Now I am the dragon
and you shall be
licked by my flame.
[IRONS GROANING]
Now you perhaps
know the fear my comrades felt
as you hunted them down.
Was it because you were afraid
they would fly too high?
[GRUNTS]
Was it because you thought
we were crazy?
Dangerous? Was it because
you couldn't control us?
Or is it because you're a leech
on a lesion
full of ***, greed
and morbid curiosity?
Does it surprise you
that I choose this
as your final memory?
[IRONS YELLING]
Freeze!
[MOBY GRUNTING]
[SARA GRUNTING]
[YELLS]
[MOBY GRUNTS]
Beware.
You got the wrong dragon.
[SARA GRUNTS]
Yes.
Well done, detective.
[GRUNTING]
Have you had any time
to think about my offer?
Excuse me?
Would you like to come under
my wing, see the world?
You protecting me?
The answer is no.
NOTTINGHAM:
Thank you, Sara.
Do not thank me
for saving your wretched life.
NOTTINGHAM:
I'm not.
I'm thanking you
for finishing my job for me.
I did nothing for you.
Of course you did, Sara.
A dead body revenges
not injuries.
MOBY: Beware.
You got
the wrong dragon.