IN DEVELOPMENT

PITCH

by James Patrick Dillon

At the age of seven, I watched as my grandfather, a Portuguese gypsy, bent the limb of a tree so my sister, who sat on his shoulders, could pick a chestnut. He did it with his mind. “Just reach up,” he told her. “It will come to you.” And it did. 

Thus began my fascination with all things occult. 

Have you ever wanted to follow in your parent’s or grandparent’s footsteps, to learn what they do, participate in the things they’ve enjoyed or mastered? Do you sometimes wish you had their powers, prowess, or special expertise?

Well, the legacy students (Legs) at DTU are in the same boat. That’s Devil’s Triangle University, a stunningly beautiful, technologically advanced island campus in the Devil’s Triangle, where otherworldly professors help legacy admits with undiscovered gifts develop their powers, and train while on seemingly impossible quests in the strange and dangerous netherworlds of time and space.

Leg 1 is Sakura (Saki) Namami. When we meet her, she’s in a private jet with her mother, on the way to college. A fasten seat belts sign comes on and the well-known tone chimes. Her mother buckles up, but Sakura can’t seem to find hers. “Enjoy college, sweetheart,” replies her mother. The tail section of the jet opens, the nose of the Jet goes up, Sakura’s seat slides back and abruptly slams to a stop at the edge. BOING! It flips her out and she tumbles through the clouds. When she emerges, she’s freefalling over the sea, and there’s a huge cyclonic waterspout in the distance and its coming her way...

Is this the end of Sakura? 

Nah. 

It’s just the beginning of her very special education.

Leg 2 is Michael St. Claire, a freshman Indiana Hoosier’s football QB with a penchant for pissing off his teachers. On his first day of class, and unbeknownst to him, he’s about to be transferred. 

Michael’s first assignment: to write up an answer to the following question: If you could live at ANY TIME in history, in any place, and meet any historical figure, when, where, and with whom would it be? That night his “wish” is granted, but rather ironically. Michael suddenly finds himself accused of being one of two thieves about to be crucified in Jerusalem, alongside his “hero.” 

When we leave him, an earthquake sends him and the cross he hangs on sliding into the first level of Dante’s Hell. Unbeknownst to him, he’s just a few hundred meters deep, beneath the campus of DTU.

Leg 3 – Matt Pachacuteq, a Machu Pichu native, wanted to see the world, and that trip ended on the Ivory Coast. Here he witnesses what can only be described as a miracle. A VooDoo prince and Tempestarii summons a cyclonic waterspout that forms over a gigantic oceanic school of fish. The cyclone makes landfall and dumps the fish and millions of gallons of water into a dried up lake bed. Famine over, flora and fauna instantly restored. As the cyclone whirls, the prince asks if Matt would like to learn how to do this. On his nod, the prince smiles, claps his hands, and Matt lifts off and is swept into the cyclone. When the Cyclone disappears, he, too is gone. But not for long. 

The cyclone reappears, over the Bermuda triangle, and Sakura joins Matt in the swirl. The two remain suspended, close enough to communicate, and even join hands, as the cyclone approaches the island and stalls in place. 

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Meanwhile, Professor Anton Blaylock  (an alum with the power to bi-locate) who is also the pilot of the Jet, and the VooDoo prince, comes galloping across the sea on a ghost-white steed. A DTU professor and immortal in his own right, Blaylock will guide the fledgling legs, including his own daughter, and Michael's love interest. Abba (Leg 4) toward their one shared goal: To GO HOME. 

Of course, they can’t do that, unless they pass their DTU tests. 

On the many planes of the multiverse, forward and backward in time, they will encounter potentially deadly obstacles to doing so. On each quest, the Legs discover and ultimately learn how to command their powers, and by so doing they each move closer to their full potential.

In the pilot we’ll grab your imagination, and watch it ignite a firestorm of possibility. We’ll see how they survive their initial entrance exam, bond with new friends, including the otherworldly Leg 5, and outmaneuver enemies. Later, they’ll jump across eons or time, study with the masters of the multiverse, and complete impossible quests. Each week, a new challenge. Each Leg, tested to the limit.

They say that ignorance is bliss.

But once you’ve eaten the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, bliss is for children. From now on, power rules. And in the end, our Legs will possess the power to rule the world.