the third temple

outlaw youths 01

a young boy with neatly combed blonde hair and round glasses is being initiated into a monastery. he kneels as the monks prepare to perform their sacred ritual.

a scruffy youth, sort of a corey feldman in goonies type, in a hockey jersey and leather jacket bursts into the sanctuary to interrupt the ceremony.

the neat young boy turns to him. the scruffy youth looks around and visibly cringes at the thought of all this monastic woo woo.

eye contact. no words need be exchanged.

the young monk-to-be sighs and shrugs. 'Fine, one more time,' he says.

Then they're on the highway through a lush jungle somewhere in the US. they're probably both 14 but they drive.

'Cmon, cmon, get outta the way!' howls the scruffy one scornfully as he honks at the clunker ahead of him in the left lane. It passes over and inside the driver's seat an old lady gives them the finger.

a cop flashes his lights, gets ready to pull them over.

'I can handle this,' says the friend, and he puts his foot on the gas, rocketing away up the highway. The policeman is so annoyed at this. 'Ugh, what? Are you kidding me?' the cop says to himself, and decides to not pursue them. Too much work. 'Wasn't that big of a deal anyway,' the cop mutters neurotically.

They make it out west, to the desert. Here a group of evangelicals are rebuilding the temple of solomon to scale. It's almost complete.

'They're using real gold,' says the scruffy one, handing his binoculars to the neat one. They're on a ridge overlooking the massive construction site. Harried missions teams and youth groups are working by hand to build the walls. The overseers are whipping the lazy middle schoolers with scorpions!

'Yeesh. But so much of that gold work is too huge.'

'But they also have a replica of the ark of the covenant...solid gold.' He holds a flyer advertising this fact in his hand.

'You're kidding me,' the neat one says, still glued to the binoculars.

'Yep. In the holy of holies.'

'They'll kill us if they find we've stepped inside there. Doesn't it seem a little disrespectful?'

'Disrespectful? I think what's disrespectful is them trying to rebuild The Third Temple in new mexico!'

'Yeah...'

The scruffy one demands his binoculars back.

'Do you see all the guards?' says the neat.

'Yeah... in period costume and everything... robes and spears. C'mon. Look at these clowns. This will be the easiest heist we've ever done.'

That night, when the work is ceased, a special touring youth group goes in to see the courtyard in all of its spectacle. The boys join in and act like they belong. The torches are lit, as are the great braziers. The massive ritual implements of bronze gleam in firelight and moonlight. They're like tiny ants walking around God's massive patio, beholding his gigantic grills...

'Are they actually performing sacrifices in here?' mutters the scruff. 'That'd be kind of weird.'

'Excuse me, who are you two?' says one of the youth leaders, puzzled. She's a pretty college age student. Actually she's kind of a bombshell. She's wearing a lanyard and a form fitting sweater. The lanyard says 'Grace.' She asks the question in a casual enough tone that it doesn't draw anyone else's attention.

'Oh, we just came along for this trip...' replies the neat one innocently.

'Yeah, you come here often?' says the scruff, less innocently, wiggling his eyebrows.

She scoffs. 'Are you with another group?'

'We're with the Resonate group,' says scruff confidently. 'We just came over to this group cause I wanted to get to know you better.'

She really laughs at this and moves on.

Scruff watches her saunter off to join her team.

'You really like her,' says the neat one.

'C'mon, I just met her, maybe she's a total bitch,' deflects the scruff.

'Dude, you can't say bitch in the temple,' says the neat.

'Yeah, sorry. Maybe she's a total ho,' he whispers.

'Or maybe she's God's plan for your life,' says his friend back.

'I'm open to that possibility,' says the scruff, combing back his hair a little bit. He is wearing fingerless gloves.

They then amble over to catch up with the group, so that the guards with spears, muscular baptists watching tirelessly in the night, don't notice them standing out.

However, as they leave to enter into one of the hallways, we see ninjas creep out of the shadows and garrote the innocent baptist guards, one by one. The temple is under attack. A spear falls from a guard's hand, but a ninja captures it before it clatters on the stone...

The tour group is in the holy place, though a blue veil is hung between them and the holy of holies. Everyone is oohing and ahing at the ornate designs on the walls and ceiling and the engraven cherubim and palm trees .

'It's in there man... I can smell it,' says the scruff, pointing to the veil. Though the thick curtain, you can dimly perceive something is glowing brightly behind it - moonlight hitting the ark and the wings of massive guarding cherubim.

'All I smell is incense,' says the neat. 'How are we going to get it out of here with all of those guards?'

'We could come down through the skylight, and use a pulley system to get it up... let's just check it out and then we'll see what the best liberation process is.'

'Hey, where are all the guards?'

'Huh?'

'Shouldn't there be some guards in here? This is like the most expensive part of the whole complex,' says the neat.

'Weird...'

As the tour group moves on, they wait behind. Pretty soon they are the only ones in the massive resplendent room.

'No cameras. Period accurate,' smirks the scruff. He starts towards the curtain.

'Are you sure we should do this?' asks the neat. 'It feels kind of... blasphemous.'

'Dude. That isn't the actual holy of holies. That isn't the actual ark of the covenant. This isn't the actual temple. It's a reconstruction! The real temple is the body of Christ, and God now dwells in all sanctified believers,' says his scruffy friend indignantly.

'Yeah, I guess...'

'So we're really doing them a favor by taking the ark,' the scruff insists. 'It's really going to become kind of an idol for them, I think.'

So they walk up the golden steps. Despite all of his earlier bravado, the scruff slows down a bit. He hesitates. He solemnly reaches out a hand to pull aside the curtain...

but then a blood curdling scream from the courtyard tears through the door of gold and olivewood.

'What's going on out there?' says the neat.

'Sounded like her,' says the scruff.

They race out of the nave, but keep to the shadows. They move quietly... they're experienced in these matters.

In the courtyard the tour group of kids is tied up and gagged. The bloody corpses of spearmen are in a heap. A squad of black robed ninjas gather in a circle. Their leader at the center, with a long black hood, wears a red amulet. He lifts his hands and chants some awful ritual. The ninjas hum along.

'Satanists!' whispers the scruff.

They have the bombshell tied up as well. They are preparing to feed her into the flames of the brazier in some kind of unholy human sacrifice, to mock the evangelicals and their God.

The sorceror in the center cackles and spits more abyssal curses.

'Bro I'm sorry it had to turn out like this... you were right to try to retire,' groans the scruff.

'What are we going to do?' says the neat. They've been in some tight spots before but... phew.

'They're gonna kill her,' says the scruff. 'If we don't do something right now...'

'We don't have any weapons or anything!' says the neat.

'Well, I have my knife, obviously...' says the scruff. 'Look, this sucks, but there's only one way to buy some time. Start running.'

'Huh?' says the neat.

'Hey assholes!' shouts out the scruff. The ninjas all turn. 'Don't toss her in the fire you sickos. Why can't you just be normal?' Neat takes off running back into the holy place.

They rush forward. Scruff wrestles with them for a while but eventually the ninjas each grab a limb of his and subdue him.

'You do not wish the beautiful young lady to die, so you will be sacrificed first... so she can watch closely the fate she will receive regardless,' says the sorceror coldly. 'I'm sure she will be thankful for the five extra minutes of life you have purchased for her.'

She weeps bitterly. Her youth group groans in fear against their gags.

'But first!' says the leader. 'We must catch that one that ran away. Go!' And all of the ninjas depart after him. Only the sorcerer remains, contemplating the flames of the brazier, murmuring to himself.

Scruff watches them go and slowly starts cutting his bonds with the knife he hid up his sleeve, keeping his eye fixed on the dark robed man...

Neat is back in the nave. There's only one place for him to hide. Behind the curtain. Taking a deep breath, he draws back the veil.

'God, I know I'm not super holy, but please don't destroy me for this one...' he murmurs as he steps inside. The statues of the cherubim glow in the moonlight. The ark is beautifully crafted. With extreme caution, he lifts up its golden lid. He feels like he's never lifted anything heavier in his life. It's empty. He crawls inside and slowly shifts the lid shut from below.

Outside he hears footsteps. Ninjas have entered the holy place.

He hears the rustling of the curtain being thrown open.

But then he hears a strange discordant tone, like two massive electric saws resounding off one another in the most slow and haunting way possible. A drone like nothing he has ever heard in his life. It is mingled with something like a woman's wail, fragments of an aria out of heaven.

Then, the ninjas begin screaming.

The neat can't resist. He lifts up the lid of the ark, and he sees the cherubim alive, destroying the enemies of God. The ninjas are fleeing on fire.

He shuts the lid again in terror, afraid his face will melt. But it doesn't.

The sorceror is interrupted from his serene sense of triumph by the rumblings in the holy place.

'What the hell?' he mutters, fiddling with his satanic amulet. This is getting weird. These guys are highly trained... I mean just look what they did to the guards here...

A ninja emerges from the nave, his robes in flames. He tears them off himself. Naked, unmasked, terrified, he beseeches his master: 'Uh, dark lord, this is bad. This is really bad. I think we're kinda boned here...' but the flames keep licking at his skin. He slowly crumples up and dies in an ashy heap.

'What is going on in there!' demands the dark lord. He says some bad words I won't repeat.

Scruff doesn't take any chances with what is going on in there. He's free of his bonds now. He stabs the sorceror through the back of his chest, right through the heart.

'Agghgh!' says the sorceror. But he doesn't die quite yet. He really doesn't want to, having pledged his soul to the powers of darkness and so forth. Infernal will propells him forward despite his mortal wound. He slams the scruff to the ground with a single steely blow of his hand, knocking out a tooth. He grabs Grace by her bonds and prepares to cast her into the flaming brazier as his last act of defiance against the living God.

But now the cherubim has thrown open the olivewood doors of the holy place. The sorceror takes one look at it in terror and it opens its eyes at him. At this eye contact he is immediately turned into a pillar of salt. The cherubim just turns and crushes another ninja that tries to flee.

The neat comes walking out between the cherubim's legs in a daze. Scruff is in shock. This isn't exactly how he expected his plan to work out. But it's worked out.

'I guess... I guess we sorta misjudged the whole situation...' he says. Neat just begins untying the kids from their bonds. They gaze at the cherubim, hypnotized, afraid they themselves will be turned to ash. But it doesn't acknowledge them. It's too busy scanning the perimeter for any more threats.

Scruff helps Grace down from the pillar and cuts her bonds. They try to avoid looking at the terrible angel. They get the kids to move outside back to the parking lot.

'Wait!' declares the cherubim finally, entering into the parking lot itself when all of the ninjas have been found and obliterated. 'I have one last lesson for you all.'

The children turn and obediently attend to the radiant being.

'The glory of God shall not be reduced to an american theme park,' utters the cherubim. A blast of fire comes from its mouth and the whole temple complex is consumed.

They watch in awe as the massive structure crumbles before their very eyes. The cherubim then enters into the golden inferno and vanishes.

'I'm retired now, dude,' says Neat, the reflection of flames flickering in his round glasses.

'Yeah,' says scruff. 'Me too.'

'Thanks for saving me,' says Grace shyly.

'Yeah, any time babe,' says the scruff. 'Let's get out of here.'