I just want to thank the creators of DARK AGES for creating such a great background, and Storyseeker for correcting my fics and helping me with great ideas and for the characters of his ficverse.
10.Friendship
"Well..." Desdemona began unsure "I have talked with some of my brothers and sisters and..."
"And?" Darlene asked curious.
"... and I want to ask you if I could call you sister from now on."
5.-More things to tell
She stared into two wide eyes staring directly into hers.
"Ähmm..." a man around his thirties, with wide mild blue eyes, short blonde hair that was full of gel, began, "…hello?"
"Who are you?" Asrial asked him, working hard not to scream with surprise and before he could say anything, she had a second question coming into her mind "What are you doing here?"
"Oh, I forgot...Thomas Carter." the man began. "My name.."
"Asrial." Asrial replied, extending a claw.
"I wasn't going to steal anything." he defended himself, even if he sounded weak. "I just should manipulate the MINER robot you studied first."
Asrial stared on him, in her shock not registering the fact that he had been there the whole time without her noticing it.
"Why?" she asked, her voice being less loud, but much more disappointed than before.
"Such robots will cost many miners their work and will just make some CEO's richer," he explained "So when labor union came to me and offered me money for this, I agreed."
Interludes:2.Visites
"I have to thank you for giving the hatchlings a perspective for a better future." Darlene said, slightly shaking her head. "Sometimes I really miss such."
Elisa's smile enlarged. Sometimes she couldn't believe how Darlene and Angela could be Demona's daughters.
"It is not me alone who do this," she noted.
"I know." Darlene said "But thank you, nevertheless."
"Hey, we're clan." Elisa explained with a big smile.
Darlene nodded, as they were indeed.
8.Decisions to live, decisions to die(Part1)
23.08.98; 21:13 Destine Mansion, Darlene's room:
"You really don't want to come with us?" Darlene asked, taking Gem in her arms.
Her mother just shook her head.
"I have to take care of the details with my contract with Xanatos." Demona replied. "And all the humans in my company seem to be incompetent."
Darlene sighed.
"Okay, mother." she resigned, then looking to Shade by her mother's side, "And you?"
The gargbeast seemed to think about it, and then she snorted and laid herself by her friend's feet-claws.
"I'll see you later, mother." Darlene said.
Her mother simply nodded and then turned around walking to her working room, followed by Shade.
Darlene stroked Gem in her arms, and then turned to the other gargoyles sitting on the roof.
"Let's go." she told her two older children, as the two young warriors who had been sent to accompany them approached.
23.08.98; 21:31 Castle Wyvern, Courtyard:
The group landed in the courtyard, watched by some gargoyles who were standing guard, or simply strolling around.
Lana saw Jarred excusing himself and rushing into the great hall, surely in search of his friends. She planned to do so, too, if she could get the horny males away from her first, who seemed eager to talk to her… She didn't want to make her friends feel uneasy again.
"Young one?" a voice called.
Lana discovered her teacher walking up to her, limping a bit with her left leg, and recognized that her problem was no more.
"Teacher." Lana greeted her torturer in a hopeless way.
The teacher starred on her, and after a second the reluctant warrior-in-training stood to attention.
"You do a fine job with my daughter." Darlene noticed, commenting the scene.
The old teacher did not respond at first, but studied Lana with a scowl on her face.
"She's making progress, though slow," she explained. "But she is more stubborn than it is good for her."
"I know." Darlene agreed. "She always was thick-headed."
"Mom!" Lana exclaimed, half embarrassed, half angry.
Her mother gave her a half apologizing look.
"Okay," she said, looking to Gem in her arms, "shall we let your big sister train and visit your aunts?"
Gem's tail lashed and she gurgled happily by the mention of her aunts, so Darlene set her on the ground and allowed her daughter to follow her on all fours, leaving her oldest daughter very alone with her teacher.
"We begin with 10 rounds around the castle." the teacher said, still eyeing Lana unhappily. "Then we go into the training room and do some claw-to-claw fights."
The teacher turned around to go to the courtyard, and Lana dropped her shoulders.
23.08.98; 21:42 Castle Wyvern, Great Hall:
Darlene walked through the hall, searching for company, and she looked down to her feet-claw, seeing Gem running by her side. While mother and daughter passed members of the clan who lingered around and paid them no mind since they were used to her sight already, a pair of eyes just lasted on her.
"Brother?" a voice called him.
Thersities looked around, seeing Asrial standing beside him with a large bag on her back.
"Sorry, sister." he replied, knowing her question already. "But tonight I have no time."
"Yes, you have." His sister replied.
"I…" Thersities stopped. "Do you know something I don't?"
He looked to Darlene, who was now greeted by their sister, the leader, as well as the leader's mate, and his daughter.
"Our sister, Angela and the leader's mate have planned something for her." Asrial explained. "After the doctor's test… they asked me if I wanted to join, but Thomas has time tonight."
Thersities looked on his clever sister, and then he looked back to Darlene who talked seriously to Goliath.
"Brother, please?" Asrial asked him "Goliath has told me he can't come because of some work with the police, and finding someone else could take hours."
Thersities groaned. He had nothing against Thomas, and the way to his house wasn't that far, but his spider made him feel uneasy. Sure, he had told him that he would never let the spider out of the aquarium, but how do you trust someone who kept spiders for pets?
Then he looked into the begging eyes of his sister and remembered how she had helped him out of trouble when the elders were after him because of unnecessary work.
"Okay," he surrendered, "you got me."
Asrial smiled and turned around.
"Come, let's go." she told him. "I promised to show Thomas my newest inventions."
Thersities sighed, taking a last look on Darlene and seeing how she seemingly was walked off, before he followed Asrial.
23.08.98; 21:51 Castle Wyvern, Infirmary:
Darlene walked out of the room, holding Gem in her arms.
The tests had been remarkably fast this time, and the doctor had assured her that she was alright, yet she couldn't help but feel bad about having to come here every second night.
Seeing her two sisters and Elisa waiting on her made her feel better at once.
"The test has shown no problems." Darlene said, placing Gem on the ground. "So, what is your surprise?"
"We talked about you coming on patrol with us." Angela said. "And we wondered if you wanted a little training?"
Darlene thought about it. Her own last fight had been some time ago, and bringing her rebellious daughter to order didn't really count on this.
"I would like that." she answered.
Something chirped down at their feet, and they found Gem by Elisa´s feet.
"Ah, and what do you want?" Elisa asked the hatchling by taking her up.
Gem laughed by this, even more when the human tickled her stomach.
The surrounding gargesses smiled by this sight, most of all Darlene.
"She likes you, sister." Darlene noticed.
The other three females, first of all Elisa, looked surprised on her, and then they smiled.
Darlene smiled, too, though she was the one most surprised of them.
She is my sister, since she is clan, the gargess thought. But if I tell mother of this she'll hang me.
"Where do we keep her meanwhile?" Darlene asked, thinking. "Jarred and Lana have training."
"What about the rookery mothers?" Desdemona asked. "They should be outside now."
Darlene's mood dropped, trying to hide this and asking herself why she hadn't seen this coming.
"I know you have problems with them," Angela said, interpreting her sister's face right. "I have, too, but there is no reason why we can't let them take care of the children of the clan."
Darlene thought about it for a moment, looking in her daughter's questioning eyes, and then she nodded.
23.08.98; 21:53; Castle Wyvern, outside the Library:
Hudson propped heavily on his support while going to the library, with his mate beside him, having to go just a bit slower than normal.
When they entered the library, Hudson couldn't but feel a bit proud, by the sight of the gathered gargoyles inclusive four new members of his literature course, each of the former clan of Moray, sitting on some tables with desks in the middle of the library.
Each of them had a book for adult persons who were learning how to read in front of them, and looked ready, though they looked a bit concerned on their teacher.
Hudson sighed, as word of his condition had passed fast even through this extraordinary large clan, and now it was up to him to prove that he never felt better.
"Good evening to ye." he greeted, walking to his own place and sitting down on his chair. "I'm happy to see some new faces here."
The new ones looked a bit unsure, and Hudson knew that this was due to the fact that they were being thrown back into the role of a pupil after they already had passed all the tests they had thought they ever needed.
He smiled on his mate who had taken her place near his own table, and then looked on the materials Owen had made ready for him.
"We begin, as every time, repeating the ABC," he explained, pointing on one of his rookery sisters who had decided to take part in this. "You begin."
His sister stood up.
"A, B, C…" she recited, and Hudson smiled.
23.08.98; 22:07 Castle Wyvern, training room:
"Claw-to-claw combat, the morning-star, sword and shield…" Desdemona counted while looking over the gathered training equipment.
"Umm, I guess I prefer a claw-to-claw fight." Darlene explained.
Desdemona shrugged her shoulders.
"It's your first training hour." she noticed, and closed the doors to the equipment room.
Darlene had to smile by this word, feeling for a moment like a hatchling before its first training lesson. Near her, Elisa and Angela looked on the scene with eager interest while some meters away from her; Lana was trying to follow the gestures of her teacher's sword with her own.
"Ready?" Desdemona asked her when they both had taken their position.
Darlene nodded, as she took her battle position, seeing her sister doing the same.
Both warriors began to encircle each other, each studying their opponent's movements, not to miss a hint of a sudden attack.
Faking a jump to the right, Desdemona made a jump on Darlene, stretching her claws to throw her sister on the mat. Darlene foresaw this and made a step right, catching her sister's loincloth and using her energy to throw her on the mat. On this, Desdemona fell down, but managed to roll off, coming to stand on all fours.
"You're not slow." Desdemona commented with a smile while standing up.
Her sister replied this with a smile, and began to encircle Desdemona anew.
It followed a series of attacks and counter attacks between the two warriors, carefully studied by Elisa and Angela.
It was when she heard the sound of her daughter cursing that Darlene got distracted, if just for a second, but that was all that Desdemona needed when she noticed it. Her claws dove through the cover and pushed Darlene backwards, making her stumble and sending her onto her back, and when her sister went down, she used her tail to throw her off her feet.
Darlene landed heavily on the mat, groaning.
"Distracted?" Desdemona noticed. "If that ever happened to us, we had to glide ten times around the castle during our training lessons… If we were lucky."
By saying this, she approached her fallen sister, extending a claw to help her up.
Darlene smiled on this, as she grabbed the claw and rising a bit, before letting herself fall backward while still holding her sister's claw, and so making her fall on the mat behind her. A second later, Darlene sat on Desdemona, pressing her sisters claws down with a sweated smile.
"Seemingly we can glide together then." Darlene noticed.
Desdemona tried to fight her off, tried it with her arms, legs and her tail, but to no avail since her sister seemed equal in strength, so finally she surrendered.
"You are good." Desdemona commented, when her sister stepped off her. "Not as rusty as you claimed."
Darlene gave her a weak smile and offered a claw to help her up.
"Something you never forget." she explained to her sister and to the two bystanders, to which some had added. "Especially when you have learned it before you could even glide properly."
Desdemona, having managed to stand up, looked surprised on her.
"That is very young?" she commented.
Darlene shrugged her shoulders.
"Mother wanted me to be able to protect myself," she explained. "Besides, there wasn't really much for me to do anyway."
"We had practices since we could glide." Desdemona said. "Even when the training on weapons came much later."
"On Avalon we never learnt how to fight, as there was never any need to, before the Archmage attacked." Angela explained, having come nearer. "But we did learn some lessons in Latin, and how to read and to write."
"My first training was against Antonio Barnett in the second grade." Elisa commented. "Afterwards, father gave me a few hints."
The other females chuckled by the thought of little Elisa fighting with another child in primary school.
"Shall we continue?" Darlene asked.
"Why not trying this?" Desdemona suggested. "We fight, and every time someone looses three times, another one steps in."
Darlene thought about it, looking to the other females who seemed to like this idea, and nodded.
"Why not." she noticed.
Desdemona stepped over to Angela, laying a claw on her shoulder.
"Since I've had my share, why don't we test this young warrior?" the slightly older gargess noticed enthusiastically.
Angela looked less enthusiastic, and this reminded Darlene so much on Lana that she had to laugh out loud.
23.08.98; 22:14, Thomas's House:
Thersities and Asrial landed on the seemingly abandoned house.
"Brother?" Asrial asked, seeing her brother's eyes clouded.
"Mhhh?" he responded surprised.
His sister sighed, noticing that her brother's thoughts were back on Darlene.
He has a serious crush. Asrial thought chuckling, remembering the human word for this. Do I look so when I think on my inventions?
"Shall we go in?" she asked, pointing on the door. "I have the key."
"Let me catch some air first." Thersities said, not wanting to see Thomas's spider again anytime soon.
Asrial nodded, and turned around.
The door opened easily, and Asrial put the key back in bag on her belt, again she remembered how surprised she had been when Thomas had given her the key to enable her to come whenever she wanted.
"Thomas, I'm here?" she called out, stepping on the iron spiral staircase.
Wondering, she noticed that Thomas was nowhere to be seen in the room, and despite that they had chatted before coming, she feared for a moment that he had forgotten their meeting. This was when she discovered the activated monitors of Thomas's PC in the middle of the room's normal chaos.
He must have left shortly? Asrial thought, taking off her rucksack, holding it before her when she walked down the staircase.
Just then, it dawned on her that Thomas's room looked too unclean, even for Thomas's style. In this moment she heard a sound to her right, where a door had just been leaned on, and before she could react Asrial was crashed against the wall, loosing her rucksack by this.
The gargess wanted to react, to take the defense position her teacher had taught her long ago, but her opponent was too fast and had already come behind her, pressing its claws on her throat.
"One move, or sound, and you won't even be able to twitter any more," a voice snarled in her ears.
Out of the shadows of another door, another creature came forward, holding a scared Thomas in the same way as she herself was held, just that this... this man, with seemingly long brown hair, held his claws before Thomas's face.
"Go up, sis, and see if she has come with reinforcements?" he ordered the woman behind. "The bat won't give us any trouble, or else I'll give her friend a new face."
The man put his metallic claws closer to Thomas's face, but before Asrial could gasp or even try to fight the female, she was thrown to the ground.
"You are the Pack," the orange-skinned female noticed, when she managed to look up again, hearing the sound of metal hitting metal when Hyena stormed up the staircase.
Asrial had recognized him as a member of the Pack, whose pictures Goliath had shown the clan after they had learned of the Packs break out.
"Good to hear that we still have fans out there." Jackal said with a false grin.
"You have a quarrel with my clan." Asrial said, too worried about her friend to think about what her brother was doing. "Leave Thomas out of this!"
Jackal laughed like mad.
"Ohhh, you are his little girlfriend," he noticed grinning, but continuing to hurt Thomas. "Why has this little Amour not told us about you?"
"Let her go and I'll fix you." Thomas begged. "She has nothing what you want."
Asrial couldn't, but stare on her human friend.
"I thought you wanted to do this before." Jackal hissed, making Thomas wince. "But seemingly now we have a better reason for you."
Asrial wanted to jump up and attack this Cyborg, as she felt the anger float through her veins and made her eyes light red. But Jackal seemed to see this, moving his claw to Thomas's face so that it bled where his claws met the soft flesh.
In this moment, Hyena appeared on the top of the staircase.
"There is no one," she explained, sounding nearly disappointed. "Seemingly she came alone… Let's kill her."
Jackal thought about it.
"No," he replied. "If there was someone with her, we want her alive and well when her friend returns with big daddy Goliath."
His sister chuckled when she walked down.
"I don't know how they discovered me." Thomas explained to Asrial when they relaxed a bit, his eyes full with fear. "But they want me to fix their mechanical parts."
"Yes, and you will." Hyena said behind Asrial's back. "Or we make mincemeat of your little friend."
The gargess could feel Hyena's claws in her back.
23.08.98; 22:23, Outside:
Thersities slowly climbed back onto the roof, sneaking to one window and listening through it.
This wasn't good.
He didn't like seeing his sister in the hands of these two, but at the same time he knew that rushing in could easily make things worse, even if he was a very good warrior... at least when he was alone.
Worried, he looked up to the sky, hoping to see any of his siblings nearby on their patrols throughout the city. If he had just listened where and when patrols were assigned.
Becoming more and more desperate, Thersities remembered something. Taking the bag on his belt, he looked through it and found a note with a number on it, and inwardly thanked Elisa for having given the clan the number of the gargoyles task force office.
Now, all he had to do was just find a telephone.
As silent as he could, the gargoyle crept away from the window, after having assured himself that the Pack didn't plan to hurt either his sister or her friend at the moment. He reached the edge of the roof and stared into the night.
There was no police patrol in sight, nor a patrol of the clan either, as he had somehow hoped, but the worst thing was that there was no sign of a telephone box anywhere near him… This was when he remembered that even if he found one, he didn't have the money to pay for a call.
Great, Thersities thought depressed. Why do the Humans have to take money for everything?
Having no better idea, he looked over the windows of the shabby house before him, finding one window, which was just leaning open.
Trying his luck, Thersities glided over to the window and peered through it, finding the room behind it empty, and spotting the telephone on a cupboard halfway through the room.
Praying to any god who would listen to him that the owner of this apartment was either out or was in a very deep sleep, the gargoyle crept into the room, shortly paying attention to how shabby and dirty the room looked.
Reaching the telephone, he dialed the number and waited for what seemed like long seconds for someone take up.
"Gargoyles task force," a tired sounding male voice greeted him. "How may we help you?"
"Well…" Thersities began. "I'm a Gargoyle and need help, my sister and her friend have been kidnapped by the Pack and… "
"Ha ha, very funny." the man on the other side of the wire commented. "May I inform you that ringing the police for fun is regarded as a crime?"
"No!" Thersities replied hastily. "I really am… "
The sound of a phone call ending stopped him, and the Gargoyle couldn't help, but look on the phone disbelieving and rebuking himself for beginning with such a ridiculous first line. Maybe he should call 911?
Click
It was the reflexes of a warrior paired together with his extraordinary sense for trouble, which made Thersities at once jump by this sound, saving his live since a bullet raced through the air where his head had been just a second ago.
Rolling away, the Gargoyle discovered a man having crept behind him, and he held a very threatening looking rifle in his hand.
"Hey!" Thersities protested, but spared himself further words since the man once again took aim on him.
Once again the bullet met thin air, but before the man could aim again, Thersities had grabbed the top of his rifle, holding it up so that the next shot just hit the ceiling, making some plaster rain down on the Gargoyle's head.
"I won't let a beast intrude my home!" the man screamed on him, not letting the rifle go and trying to get it back, despite the Gargoyle's superior strength.
This gave Thersities a better opportunity to look on his attacker. The man looked like he was somewhere in his mid-fifties, though this could be an illusion to the large loss of hair, leaving just a garland of thin brown hair around his head.
His face was partly scarred, and his nose seemed to have been broken at least once, making his gray eyes look even more threatening to the Gargoyle.
His clothes seemed eager to fit to his apartment. The gray trousers were held on him by a pair of braces, spanning partly over the large stomach hidden by his stained, partly brown shirt.
Though Thersities gave him the favor that he surely hadn't counted on guests coming in the night through his window, he guessed by the smell that he had just decided to drink a Vodka alone.
"I just wanted to call the police… " Thersities began.
"You wanted to rob me or kill me in my sleep!" the man interrupted him. "The police should hunt you down and kill you all!"
Oh great, Thersities thought. He's that sort of guy, is he?
Suddenly, the man let the rifle go and jumped on him. Thersities, being faster than the man, jumped to the right and let the man fall over his tail.
Seeing the man falling on the ground, where he had stood just a second before, gave the gargoyle an idea.
"Yes, call the police." Thersities agreed, seeing how the man began to stand up again, starring at him with an irrational hate. "Tell them I came into your room, and tell them the Pack is here… Best call the task force. The number is by your telephone."
The man once again tried to jump on him, and the way he did somehow told Thersities that he had once been through a warrior education, or something similar, but the Gargoyle was much faster, jumping onto the frame of the window.
The rifle still in one claw, Thersities threw it into the most distant corner of the room before jumping into the night, hearing the man's curses behind him.
By the dragon I hope this works, he prayed while gliding back to Thomas's house.
23.08.98; 22:48, Castle Wyvern, female bathing room:
Lana could still feel the pains in her back when she put on her clothes, after having dried herself up. Tonight it seemed to be much worse than the nights before, since she had met the mats more often than she could count.
To make things worse, her mother had trained with her two sisters and the cop, and seemingly had had fun… something that Lana would not understand in a 1000 years. When she had become distracted by one laugh of her mother, her teacher had used this to throw her on the mats again, and afterward had ordered her to make five rounds around the castle so that she could clear her thoughts. The night hadn't been much fun up till now.
"Lana?" a voice called to her, when she walked out of the bathing room, and looking up discovered Mary.
"Hi." Lana greeted, at once cheering up. "What are you doing here?"
Mary smiled.
"Picking you up for a meal," she explained. "We have set a place for you."
Lana got infected by her friend's smile, and smiled too. Maybe the night would become good after all.
23.08.98; 22:49, Police Station; Clock Tower:
"This would be difficult." Goliath commented. "If we see a crime, it is our instinct to prevent it."
Chavez nodded.
"I know, and even though I can't allow you this, I sympathize with you." she explained. "But think about it, I don't ask your clan to search for crime, but to report to the police if you see one so that we can react eventually. Linking the networks of your communication system with ours won't be a problem, and such you could even so call us faster if one of your patrols get in trouble."
Goliath thought about it.
"I have to speak with Xanatos and my clan about it," he explained. "But it should be possible."
The leader of the Manhattan clan didn't say anymore. Though he was happy to find one more way to protect his city, he didn't like the thought that in the case of a crime he would be reduced to the role of a powerless bystander.
He knew that part of the clan who, like he, wanted to guard their protectorate, wouldn't like this part either, but at least it was progress.
Goliath looked to his rookery brother, sitting in the chair beside him. The hunter didn't look so happy about this either, but Goliath guessed that this was additional due to the fact of being separated from his mate.
His brother's mate, and his own, had planned together with Angela to surprise Darlene with something that Elisa had called a girl's night, and though Goliath didn't know this word, he knew the meaning of it.
Darlene had surprised and honored him when she had asked him to become part of the regular patrols, which was one more reason why he liked his mate's idea. It was a shame that Darlene and her children had problem in fitting into the clan, just because they held a different culture in regard of family.
Slowly, he forced his thoughts back to the present, looking to Chavez and Bluestone, as representatives of the New York Police, sitting on the other side of the table, filled with a map of New York and the surrounding, which now had lines showing the route of the planned patrols of his clan.
"We could…" Matt began.
"Detective?" a voice interrupted him.
All four faces turned around, seeing a man climb up the stairs leading to the clock tower.
"Mike, what is it?" Bluestone asked the man of his division, who had seemingly run the way from his office up here.
"We've got a call saying that a Gargoyle attacked someone in Brooklyn," the police officer explained. "It wasn't clear, but the man mentioned the Pack."
Goliath's eyes lit up, as he stood up by the mention of their enemy's name.
"Bluestone, take a couple of your men and investigate this matter." Chavez ordered his officer.
Bluestone nodded, and went to his officer.
"Where did it happen?" Goliath asked, a sudden idea flashing in his mind. "In which part of Brooklyn."
The officer at first looked unsure on the large gargoyle, and then on his captain who gave him a short nod.
"West side." he explained.
Goliath stiffened, as this was where his clever sister had planned to go.
23.08.98; 23:03, Castle Wyvern; Kitchen2:
Lexington looked around in the kitchen, which was remarkably smaller than the main kitchen. He had smelt the fish from outside, and he had been in one of the two kitchens before where he had been searching for the cook, and his rookery brother.
The small Gargoyle found his brother between two stoves, with three hatchlings and two grown up members of the clan beside him, seemingly eager to get ready with their duties, while looking in the cauldrons with cooking water.
Lexington walked to the center of the kitchen, looking in the bowls and dishes, which were partly filled while he approached the cook.
"Brother?" He greeted him. "You're sometimes harder to find than the beasts when they are going to be washed."
Broadway looked up from one of the stoves, spotting his brother.
"Wait a minute, bro," he asked him, looking to the Gargoyles who had kitchen duties.
"Okay, take the fish out in 5 minutes," Broadway ordered. "Then prepare the potatoes. The sauces are ready, but make sure that one stays warm and the other cold, and place them close enough by the potatoes… Oh, and don't forget the fruit."
The Gargoyles around him nodded, and the cook seemed to be happy enough, so he turned to his rookery brother.
"What is it?" Broadway asked.
Lexington began to walk out on all fours, and Broadway followed him.
"Bea and I…" the smaller gargoyle began, as they reached the empty corridor. "Well, I guess we've begun to court."
"Hey, this is fantastic!" Broadway said with a wide grin. "After all the time you both spend before the computer, I feared she would become better on it than you."
"Yeah, I guess sooner or later we would have found no more reason to be together… except for this." Lexington replied, somewhat embarrassed. "But I didn't't come about this. Have you noticed that you, me and Brook have spent less and less time together lately?"
"Well, yes," Broadway said, thinking about it. "He is the second now, I the cook, and you… "
"I'm the clan's mechanic," Lexington added. "And since we now spend time with our mates… or girlfriends. We hardly hang around together anymore."
"But how could we change this?" Broadway asked. "If we go to a movie together, either our girl-friends or our siblings might want to join us… and there are our duties to do now."
"I thought about maybe doing a flight patrol together?" Lexington suggested.
Broadway thought about it for a moment. He didn't like the thought of him and Angela being separated during their duties, but then again it would just be a few times, and Angela seemed to want to spend more time with her sister, so maybe she would prefer this, too.
"Sounds great." Broadway agreed.
23.08.98; 23:05, Castle Wyvern; A room:
Darlene laid on one of the soft beds, and had to stop herself from taking a nap. This had been her first training hour in years, and though she had managed to win most of them, her muscles painfully told her that they weren't used to such anymore.
Luckily, the hot shower that she and her sisters had taken, as well as the inclusive massage afterwards, had helped a bit.
The room was rather large. It was mainly filled with small beds, or rather couches, and Desdemona had explained to her that it was used when parts of the clan wanted to relax somewhere, aside from the nightly trouble.
There were now four beds pulled together, circulated around a table where three of four sisters already laid on them, while they waited on the fourth.
The door opened and Angela came in, carrying three large boxes of ice cream, stacked over each other with four spoons on the top.
"Let me help you." Elisa offered, jumping off her bed and taking the top box with the spoons from Angela.
"Thank you." Angela told her, placing the rest of the ice cream on the table in the middle of the room. "We have chocolate, vanilla and strawberry."
"Being mated to the clan's cook has some advantages, doesn't it?" Darlene asked her sister teasingly.
"You should see how he guards the kitchen against the hatchlings, so as not to spoil their dinner." Desdemona commented on the bed beside her. "Even we have our problems there."
"I sometimes played with the thought to lock the refrigerator so that Jarred couldn't raid it." Darlene revealed, opening the ice cream box with vanilla. "He eats so much that sometimes I wonder how he stays so thin?"
"Hatchlings are this way," Desdemona commented. "Either they play, or they search for something to eat. We were the same ourselves back then."
"I and my brothers and sisters always waylaid the Magus when he baked cakes." Angela remembered. "The Princess had to throw us out of the castle and made us search for apples to distract us."
"My siblings and I always got on our father's nerves until he gave us a dollar," Elisa remembered. "Then we went to Charlie's and bought sweets, with as much sugar as there was, that just the sight made our teeth ache."
Darlene chuckled, with a spoonful of vanilla still in her mouth.
"Mother hasn't got any sweets at home, she said it would be bad for the teeth and make us fat…" she explained. "I guess the first month I was with Paul, I was in a sugar ecstasy."
Her three sisters, all of them now lying on the beds, and either having a spoon of ice cream in their mouths, or near it, looked a bit shocked at her.
"Ouch." Elisa commented, digging once again in the box with chocolate ice cream.
"Well, this explains Jarred's hunger." Angela noticed.
Desdemona thought about it, and smiled, remembering that her sister had been the one with the greatest hunger for sweets of them all.
"He is a great boy by the way," she commented. "I heard his teachers say that his skills have become better and better, there should be no problems for him to pass the tests."
Darlene smiled.
"Good to hear. I was worried that his enthusiasm might not stand the hard practice. It means to him so much " Jarred's mother said with a sigh "Since his father's death, I always worried how he would go on. It was hard for him."
"It must has been hard for you, too, sister." Angela noticed.
Darlene stayed silent for some seconds.
"I don't think I would have managed it without my children." she finally explained. "I had to, to… "
"To protect them." Desdemona helped out, and Darlene nodded, her eyes clear, though she felt somehow as if she could cry.
"This gave me a reason to go on, and now… " She looked around to the three other females, and had to smile. "Now I have you, my mother, the clan and… " Darlene slowly rubbed over her stomach. "A new daughter or son to be protected."
The others had to smile on this, though neither Angela nor Desdemona could hide their worries over what grew in their sister's belly.
"It must be a blessing to you." Elisa commented, seemingly not sharing these worries.
"It is." Darlene revealed smiling. "As to you?"
Elisa stayed silent for a moment, and then she nodded.
"I love to be rookery mother to the hatchlings," she said. "But I always wished to even so have my own children."
The other females gave her a look full of sympathy.
"Every female does." Desdemona said.
Elisa nodded.
"Yes, but before some weeks we didn't even know if this was possible." the detective reminded them, grabbing one pillow and putting it under her chin. "To be honest, I didn't believe in it and I know how much the clan wish that every member contributes to the rookery... including Goliath."
"No one has the right to force you to have a child." Angela said, upset, and straightened up in her bed. "Not even the clan."
Elisa nodded.
"I know, but I always felt I would deny Goliath something, with us being together." she revealed. "At least now I know ways how we could get some."
Darlene looked on the Human for a second, and then she smiled and laid her claw on her shoulder.
"I'm sure you would look great as Gargoyle." she commented with a smile.
"Oh I did, according to Goliath," Elisa admitted with a grin. "And he looked great as a Human."
Noticing her sister's unbelieving look, Elisa couldn't but laugh.
"It was when your mother summoned Puck and turned the whole of New York into Gargoyles," she explained. "It was a weird night."
"I imagine so." Darlene noticed, still having a look of total surprise on her face.
Elisa chuckled.
23.08.98; 23:07, Castle Wyvern; Library:
Hudson overlooked the room with a mix of pride and sorrow. The last of his pupils were gone, and his mate meanwhile was putting the tables and chairs aside.
He read over the last chapter that he had treated with his class, and they had done it surprisingly well. This one who had been in several weeks in his class before, as excelled in his class, while the newcomers had mainly restricted themselves to stay silent.
"Woof!" something barked.
Hudson looked up in the direction of the entrance, expecting Bronx to have come back from his search for food, but instead he discovered a German sheepdog, held by a human.
"Jeffrey!" Hudson greeted his friend. "Good to see ye again, old friend."
With this, the old warrior took his crutches and limped over to him, laying a claw on his shoulder.
The blind man with the sunglasses, and the brown mantle, nodded.
"As it is to hear you again," he explained, laying his hand on Hudson's arm. "I thought it was time to take your invention for a dinner with your clan… If your mate has nothing against sharing you during the meal."
With these words, he looked in the direction where Deborah still stood, having not moved since she had discovered her mate's friend entering.
"Naturally not." Hudson's mate stated, working hard not to let their guest hear her surprise over her voice with his very good senses, yet Jeffrey's little smile proved her to have failed.
Deborah waited for a second.
"I think I'll best hold us three places at the table." she then explained, sharing a short look with her mate before going out of the library.
"How was the presentation of your book?" Hudson asked his friend when his mate was gone.
"Successful," Jeffrey explained. "Though I noticed that the interesting books about your kind, has deceased rapidly over the last few months."
"Aye, too much and often bad work," Hudson noticed, "but your book is good."
Jeffrey smiled.
"Good that you liked your first edition," the blind author began. "How far are you?"
"I'm halfway through with it." Hudson stated. "It helped me over some boring hours… Shall we go to the hall?"
Jeffrey nodded, and gave his dog a hidden order, on which she walked back to the corridor, leading its master. Hudson followed a second later, skillfully turning his crutches in the direction of the hall.
"You have become quicker with them." Jeffrey noticed.
"Aye," the old warrior stated, no longer surprised at how much the Human could sense, even with the lost of his seeing ability. "Yet I hope I won't need this for much longer."
Jeffrey became silent for a second, as they began walking down the corridor.
"A mechanical leg?" he asked in a voice, which showed nothing of his emotions.
"Aye." Hudson replied. "I need it."
"For Deborah?" Jeffrey added. "You know she would stay behind you every time."
Hudson stopped instantly, followed by his friend a second later.
"For me." he replied after a second. "And for us. I know she could live with staying behind with me while the clan fights, even when it would hurt her every time, but I can't… I can't do this to her, as to me."
Jeffrey nodded.
"When I went into the war, I had a woman whom I was engaged to." he explained.
"Ye never told me of this." Hudson noticed surprised.
His friend just smiled.
"We got engaged just weeks before I left, and to be honest I don't think we were ready for it, but it held over the months of war, as we kept in contact by post," Jeffrey told him. "When I came back, and it became clear I would never be able to see again, she left me."
Hudson scowled.
"Ye surely were angry," he asked.
"I was at first. But later I realized that she simply couldn't learn to live with me under those circumstances. To be honest, I needed years to come to terms with my situation." Jeffrey remembered. "We were young, even though we thought otherwise back then, and when I look back now, I think that holding this bound would probably have hurt both of us much more than the end of our relationship."
He stopped.
"It is good to see that you and Deborah have a bond, which helps you to go through this together." Jeffrey concluded. "This is precious."
The old Gargoyle nodded.
"I feel so every night." Hudson commented thoughtfully, with something in his voice, which Jeffrey recognized as love. "Every single night."
They fell silent for some seconds, both somewhat lost in thoughts, until Jeffrey's dog barked.
"Right," his master commented, patting the dog. "It's time for dinner."
Hudson laughed.
"Aye," he said, as they walked further.
23.08.98; 23:09, Thomas's house:
Asrial looked, in growing discomfort, at how Thomas tipped the last lines of his program to override the security programs in Hyenas software. Meanwhile Jackal, who had already been brought back to full power, threatened her with his laser canon.
Well, it had actually been her laser canon, built from one of Xanatos's robots, which Asrial had transported in her rucksack, hoping to present it to Thomas, but when Jackal had discovered it, he had decided that more gun power wouldn't be bad.
Now he can see it in action, she thought, but maybe we have a chance if he…
"Ready." Thomas stopped her thoughts, leaning back from the Monitor of his PC.
Hyena looked on him suspiciously, and then she removed the cable that linked her with the PC, and starred at her right claw. Suddenly the talons on it enlarged, and with a violate movement she hit the table standing next to her and split it in two.
"I'm online again," she explained, grinning evilly to her brother.
"Then we don't need you any more." Jackal explained, turning to Asrial and aiming on her head.
The gargoyle tensed her muscles, ready to move at any moment.
"No!" Thomas screamed, jumping up from his chair.
He seemingly had wanted to say more, or even jump on Jackal to save his friend, which would have been useless since Hyena was already moving in his direction, but at this moment they heard something bursting, which made them stop in movement.
Looking up, four eye pairs discovered the form of a gargoyle jumping on the chandelier, and before anyone could move, it jumped on Jackal.
Asrial looked in total surprise at how her brother, of whom some in the clan said couldn't win against a hatchling, pinned the dangerous Cyborg on the ground.
Thomas meanwhile wasn't stunned, and also used the precious seconds to grab his chair and throw it against Hyena.
The chair hit the female Cyborg fully, but she didn't even flinch, but glared on the human.
"That was nasty." she commented, making the talons on her left claw become bigger even so. "Like this."
With those words, Hyena grabbed his shirt and slammed the man on the computer table, making two monitors jump up and fall to the ground, where they shattered loudly.
She raised her left claw, aiming on Thomas's throat, but in the moment that Hyena wanted to finish him off, another claw, an organic with the tone of dark orange, stopped her.
"You will not harm my friend!" Asrial screamed on the Cyborg.
Hyena didn't say anything, but released Thomas, using her free left claw to cut four scratches in Asrial's stomach.
The gargoyle jumped off, having turned the Cyborg's attention away from her friend and turning it unfortunately to her.
I hope my brother does better, Asrial thought frantically, as she moved back, holding her bleeding stomach with one claw.
Meanwhile, Thersities lost ground when Jackal's initial shock dwindled, and he got back his superior mechanic strength.
Not good, the gargoyle thought, as the Cyborg pushed back his claws.
As if to proof it, Jackal got his foot under the Gargoyle and thus pushed him away against a stack of shelves, where Thersities got knocked into.
"Egypt, Guatemala and our mechanic…" Jackal commented while aiming on the lying gargoyle. "You have to be everywhere."
Thersities got on all fours and jumped away while a laser beam made books and wood burn where he had stood less than a second before.
"What about exchanging times and places, so we don't meet again?" the gargoyle suggested.
Jackal commented on this by firing a laser beam on the spot where Thersities head had been a moment before, causing a hole in the wall.
"Guess not," the gargoyle noticed, starring on the Cyborg and asking himself what to do next.
Guess our teacher missed the lesson to teach us about fighting against opponents with laser weapons, Thersities thought. Or I just missed the lesson.
Just as he was going to try a jump to his left, Thersities could hear a roar behind him, and the door on the spiral staircase behind him exploded, falling directly in Jackal's direction, on which he jumped back.
A second later, Goliath landed on his brother's left while Thersities noticed Othello landing near Asrial's site, and growling threateningly, making Hyena walk backwards.
"The damn cavalry's arrived." she commented, while moving closer to her brother, realizing that they were terribly outnumbered.
"Right." Jackal agreed, firing at the suspension of the chandelier. "Time to go."
The chandelier crashed down, making Goliath jump away a second before he could try an attack. Hyena raced behind her brother, splintering the door behind him and opening for them an escape route.
"Goodbye to all our fans!" Jackal said, firing a shot direct on Thersities's chest.
The gargoyle was thrown backwards by the power of the impact, heavily crashing on the wall.
"Brother!" Asrial exclaimed, rushing to his site while Othello jumped in front of him, trying to protect his siblings from further harm.
Goliath growled after the two Cyborg's, but laser beams, coming in short distances, stopped him from going after them.
"How is he?" he asked his clever sister, who knelt at the side of their brother, rushing to her side.
Their brother didn't look good, as the skin was black around where the laser had hit him, and it seemed even to steam.
"The wound is not deep." Asrial explained, "but it's best we get him an ambulance."
This was when Goliath noticed the four bleeding scratches on his sister's stomach, and growled.
"It is okay." Asrial tried to calm him down. "Try to catch them."
The leader of the Manhattan clan gave his wounded sister and brother a last look, and then he turned around and followed Othello, who had already followed the track of his prey.
Asrial looked back to her wounded brother, seeing that Thomas was near him, too.
"How is he?" he asked, and Asrial had to force herself not to stare on the bruise on her friend's face.
"It looks worse than it is." she commented. "The beam should..."
"Ohhh..." Thersities groaned.
"Brother?" Asrial asked him.
When he didn't respond, she slapped her brother on the beak.
"OUCH!" Thersities exclaimed, suddenly waking up.
He rubbed his beak, looking angrily up to his sister.
"Hey!" he protested.
"Sorry," Asrial excused herself. "I once saw it in a documentary."
This was when Thersities smelt something like roasted chicken. Looking down, the gargoyle realized that it was his own chest.
"Ahh!" he exclaimed, trying to jump.
"It is all right." Asrial tried to calm him down, pressing him to the ground.
"All right!" her brother exclaimed. "I have a hole in my chest!"
"Remember the last laser, which hit you?" Asrial reminded him.
Slowly, Thersities calmed down.
"Last time, it didn't toast me." he commented, trying to stretch his breast muscles. "Ouch!"
"This laser worked on full power." his sister explained, taking a short look on Thomas. "But it was modified so that it just destroys the outer body structures… you may have lost some skin, but nothing more."
Thersities still looked skeptically on his partly black chest.
Suddenly, both gargoyles could hear steps, not the heavy ones of their own kind, but definitely human.
A second later, Matt entered the room, followed by Chavez.
"Anyone hurt?" Bluestone asked, studying the two gargoyles and the human.
"One." Asrial said, looking up from her brother.
"Two." Thomas replied, looking on Asrial's still bleeding stomach.
Asrial gave her friend a short smile while Matt called the ambulance over on his walkie-talkie.
"Where is the Pack?" Chavez asked them, intruding the scene.
"Left floor." Thomas said.
Chavez gave Bluestone a look, and they both raced out, following the criminals.
23.08.98; 23:43, Castle Wyvern, A bathroom:
Slowly, the pale green-skinned, and very naked, hatchling was placed in the plastic bathtub filled with mildly warm water.
The hatchling tried to figure out what was going on, and then he discovered that he seemingly liked the warm water and splashed it with his tail.
Darlene smiled, and wiped the drops of water away from her face.
"Having fun?" she asked the hatchling, amused.
The hatchling laughed up when Darlene tickled him under the chin.
"Seemingly." Desdemona said, beside her sister.
Doing so, she placed another hatchling in the plastic tub, a soft yellow-skinned female with white hair and dark green eyes. This female, other than her brother, seemed to heavily dislike the water and protested by beginning to cry.
"Hush." Desdemona purred softly, trying to calm her daughter by taking a sponge and leading it about the hatchling's sensitive skin.
"A bit afraid of water, isn't she?" Elisa commented.
She and Angela, who held Gem, stood a little behind the females who were bathing the young hatchlings, and were both doing it with smiles on their faces.
"Yes," Desdemona commented, as she led the sponge over the female's right wing, extending it a bit. "But you should see pups when they get bathed… The grown up beasts aren't much better."
Darlene grinned, as she went over the hatchling's tail with her own sponge while holding one claw on his stomach, so she hadn't to worry if he turned around.
"I remember when I once told Jarred and Lana to bathe Shade…" Darlene remembered. "They had to hunt her through the whole house."
Angela giggled by the image, while Gem grew restless on her aunt's hip, so she had to put her down.
"Did you have any pets in L.A.?" Elisa asked, watching how Gem stood by Angela, holding on the female's leg.
Darlene shook her head.
"I always had small children in the house, which gave us too much trouble to think on getting a pet." she explained.
"And back with mother?" Angela asked.
Darlene stayed silent a moment, while she turned the hatchling around in the tub, to get its back cleaned.
"I always wanted a dog, but mother said it would take too much work to get him used to us, besides we would risk being discovered, if he barked all day." she remembered with a sad smile. "And small pets, or even fishes, die too fast for my taste."
Meanwhile, Gem had toddled to her mother's side, looking questioning on her, asking for attention. Darlene placed her youngest daughter on her knee, so that she could see the other hatchlings in the bathtub.
"What about cats?" Elisa asked, not really surprised by Demona's dislike for anything.
"Mother hates cats." Darlene simply stated.
This brought her a surprised look from the other females in the room.
"Why?" Desdemona asked, staring perplexed on her sister.
Darlene just shrugged her shoulders.
"I asked her once, and she said cats would just cause trouble, and would be at places they shouldn't be." Darlene explained, wringing out the sponge. "She once spotted one, when she was showing me how to shoot a bow, and she shot it."
Elisa just stared at the back of Darlene, who did not notice this since she went with the sponge over the hatchling's back.
"So you had no pets?" Angela said, who indeed, like Desdemona, had noticed the expression on Elisa's face and now tried to get away from the topic.
Darlene thought about it for a second.
"Well, I had a flower." she explained, lifting the hatchling out of the tub and pressing it against her chest. "A pink rose."
Darlene turned around, discovering that Elisa had already taken a large white towel.
"Mother gave it to me, since we couldn't see flowers at night." she said, handing the hatchling over to her sister. "A lamp made her bloom at night. She was beautiful and smelled like a dream."
Darlene took Gem and stood up, snuggling her youngest daughter in her arms, for a moment fulfilled by better memories pf her youth.
24.08.98; 00:11 Destine Mansion; Demona's workroom:
Demona sat on the floor, her back leaned against the wall, her legs placed close to her upper body with her arms wrapped around them. In such a pose, the immortal stared in the thin air before her.
Shade sat close to her friend, pressing her body against the immortal gargoyle, hoping to gain her interest by some whining, but without success as it had been the many times before.
The scarred gargbeast once more snuggled to her friend's side, noticing the unnatural coldness of the gargoyles skin, but it brought her no response.
Meanwhile some metres away:
Lana landed first, happy to have gained enough skill in the art of gliding, and especially landing so that she didn't make a fool of herself anymore.
Having managed this, she turned around to see her three friends land behind her, one after the other, and smiled.
Her friends meanwhile did not look much enthusiastic, and looked on the dark mansion with unhidden discomfort.
"You are sure this is okay?" Mary asked.
Lana had to control herself not to roll her eyes.
"Grandma might have a devil's temper, but she doesn't eat anyone." she explained. "Besides, maybe she isn't even here."
With this, she turned around to open the doors.
Her three friends exchanged a look of discomfort. They had had much fun when their unnamed tailor had shown their newest sister the materials, which would make great new dresses, maybe for all of them.
They had made jokes and had held the different materials, clothes and leathers of different colors against the others skin, to see how it would fit her. It had been during that when Lana had suggested that they go to her home and get some of her old clothes that she had kept, to see if one of them could be changed.
All had agreed to that, finding it a good idea to visit their friend's home, and it took them a moment before they realized that it was indeed the traitor's home, too.
Mary tried not to let the anger overcome her when she thought of what her older sister had done to the clan, as she followed Lana.
Ruth meanwhile looked around the house, finding it dark, somehow creepy and abandoned. Maybe the clan's slaughterer wasn't there, as Lana had said?
How can she defend Demona? The gargoyle with the dark blue skin and red hair asked herself, while following Lana upstairs. How can she stand to be related to her?
"My room is right here." Lana explained, turning to her friends, unknowing their thoughts. "The clothes should be…"
She stopped, as she noticed that her friend's faces froze, starring on something in front of her. Following the looks, Lana discovered her grandmother leaning against the wall at the other end of the corridor, starring at them rather unfriendly, with Shade as always by her side.
"Hi, grandma?" Lana greeted her, uneasy that she hadn't noticed the immortal when she had entered this level. "I brought some friends with me. Is this okay?"
The immortal remained silent for some seconds longer, her face mainly hidden in the shadows, and Lana feared she would simply say no or just stay silent until they were gone again, but then Demona rose from the wall.
"Don't make a mess." the gargess told them icily. "I'm going out with Shade."
With this, the immortal walked the stairs up to her working room, followed by Shade who gave the four young gargoyles a look, which was just too similar to that of her friend. Lana believed the gargbeast would bark shortly to underline her grandmother's words, but then it just followed the gargess.
"Sorry." Lana explained, looking to her three friends. "But sometimes she is in this mood."
"Sometimes?" Ruth asked doubtfully.
Lana didn't know what she could say on this, but she didn't have to, as they could hear the windows about them being torn open forcefully.
"Well," the hostess said, trying to get over this episode, "do you want to see my room?"
"Sure." Mary assured, trying to get over this, too.
Lana gave them an embarrassed smile and walked to her room, opening the door.
As Mary, Ruth and their unnamed sister entered the room, they saw for the first time the room of a typical American teenager… or at least someone who had been, once.
The bed's blanket laid crumpled on the bed with the pillows on it. On the desk with the PC monitor, laid some magazines, showing women in exclusive outfits, distributed all over the place, and an opened can of Coca Cola standing beside it.
The rubbish bin beside the desk was rather full, and over the radiator Lana had hung a towel to dry.
"Sorry." Lana excused the chaos in her room "I hadn't thought of guests."
"No problem." Mary said, yet thinking about what the elders would do to them if they would let their places deteriorate into such disorder… She rather didn't want to think about it.
24.08.98; 00:17 Street before Thomas's house:
It was quite a sight for all the humans, who had stayed up until then, or were waked up by the roaring of gargoyles, the explosion caused by laser fire, or just the sirens of the ambulances having arrived minutes before.
The sight was the growing mass of people rushing around the ambulances and the police cars, but even more it was the four gargoyles in the center of the trouble.
"OW!" Thersities exclaimed once again, as the medic once again put the bandage over his wound, and then back over his back. "I told you, I can simply wait until dawn."
The medic just stared on the gargoyle, sitting on the backward entrance of the ambulance.
"Standard procedure." he replied, somehow bored, his excitement to treat a real gargoyle had quickly vanished when he learned that this one was indeed a softy.
Beside them, leaning on the ambulance, Othello watched the scene while growing more and more restless.
Asrial sat on the bed in the other ambulance, as she was treated by another medic, and worriedly watched by Goliath.
"Ready." the medic, a blond woman said as she cut the last bit of bandages off, which they had used to seal the three scratches on her stomach. "It isn't threatening if you don't move too much. Your stone sleep should take care of the rest."
"Thank you." Asrial said.
"It is my job." the blond one replied with a smile.
"It doesn't hurt?" Goliath asked.
Asrial had to smile, despite the slight pain in her stomach. Her brother worried too much sometimes; at least worried enough to come in the ambulance, despite the fact that he had to kneel down, and yet still take up too much of its interior.
"Not much." she admitted, "But I can forget my tunica."
This was all too true, as it had first been slashed open by Hyena, and then her blood had darkened the slight blue color. To finish it off, the medic had offered she either had to take off the tunica, or to cut off the middle part. She decided to choose the latter.
"The tailor can make you a new one." Goliath said earnestly, yet finding that, despite the bandages, the new outfit looked great on his clever sister.
Asrial nodded and rose from the bed, noticing a slight pain in her stomach.
"It is okay," she explained to her brother who had noticed the look on her face. "Like the medic said, one night of stone sleep will heal me."
The face of her brother and leader stayed worried, yet he left the ambulance to give her space to get out, knowing that like him she was a warrior too, and had the right to make her own decisions in such situations.
As both gargoyles walked out of the ambulances, Thomas rushed to their sides.
"How do you feel?" he asked Asrial, looking on her with a worried face.
"It still hurts." the gargess said with a sigh. "But one day of sleep and it should be over."
Thomas nodded. He still felt bad over what had happened, and Asrial could see it on his face.
"It isn't your fault." she told him.
Asrial looked to her brother, who indeed didn't seem to agree with her on this, since he looked on her friend with a scowl on his face, his arms crossed over his chest.
Morgan approached them.
"Chavez wants to speak with you." he explained, directing it on Goliath before looking on the bandaged Asrial.
Goliath nodded, and turned in the direction of the captain.
"I could have imagined a better start." Thomas said behind his back.
"Give him time." Asrial comforted him.
Goliath ignored this for now, and walked over to Chavez, yet before she could say a word he knew what she was going to say, as it was written on her face.
"The Pack?" he asked.
"Got away." Chavez said. "We…"
"There!" someone screamed. "These beasts intruded my home!"
Looking in the direction of the voice, the human and the gargoyle discovered a man maybe in his mid-forties, maybe older, with a garland of brown hair and a slightly brown shirt… and his eyes full of anger.
He seemingly had talked to a female officer before he had lost his temper, and now rushed to the gargoyles.
"It is okay." Bluestone said, rushing between the man and Goliath. "The gargoyles task force is working on it."
The man seemed to want to attack Bluestone at once, but then he captured himself.
"Okay!" he asked. "One of these beasts attacked me in my own home, and you let them run around here!"
"It's okay," Bluestone said, taking the man on the shoulder and softly pressing him away from the scene. "We will take care of this and…"
Chavez looked back to Goliath, whose face had darkened a bit.
"Bluestone will take care of him." the captain promised him, while she saw how Asrial rushed to her leader's side. "And you have to go away, as I got informed that the press will arrive soon."
"You could have let me ordered the clan to follow them." Goliath continued his argument from when he and his brother had lost the Cyborg's tracks.
Chavez face got hard.
"This is a human case." she explained. "As hard as it is to believe the two are still human, under the law and…"
"Captain, I have it." She was disturbed again.
Chavez looked to the cop and took a paper from him, giving him a nod, and reading it.
"Captain?" Goliath asked.
"This is some information about your friend." Chavez explained, looking first to him, and then to Asrial, before looking over the surroundings. "Where is he?"
The two gargoyles looked around, but Thomas was nowhere to be seen.
24.08.98; 00:23 Destine Mansion, level three:
It was one of the various rooms on this level, and like the others it was used as a storage place for Demona's various items of unknown importance, and danger. Yet now it was just used for the immortal's basic things.
"There." Lana pointed to a wooden box placed in the middle of a large shelf.
"It looks rather large." Mary commented.
Her friend nodded.
"Well." she said. "There are my shirts, my Jackets, as well as my jeans… the shoes are placed in another box."
Mary was still not convinced that anyone would need so many clothes, but as Lana grabbed one side of the box, she voluntary rushed to her side, helping her to carry the box as she had promised.
As they did so, the shelf accidentally got shaken and another wooden box on the top leaned dangerously close to the edge.
"Watch out!" Mary screamed.
The box fell down, aiming directly on Lana, but before it hit the stunned half-gargoyle, Mary's reflexes kicked in as she let loose her side of the box, reaching up and catching the other box in the air.
The gargoyle grunted in a short moment of pain, before placing the box down beside Lana.
"Thank you." Lana said, feeling the adrenalin rushing through her veins.
"No need." Mary replied, pushing away a streak of her stray blond hair out of her face. "Let's bring it down."
Lana nodded, and grabbed her side of the box and lifted it up while Mary did the same with her side.
Together, they took the box downstairs, passing Lana's grandmother's working room and finally reaching Lana's room.
"God, I'm thankful that you have great strength." Lana noticed. "Back home we would have called dad for this."
"At last I can use it a bit." Mary said. "Since we arrived here, I even miss the hacking of wood out in the forest."
The half-gargoyle didn't respond, since at that moment she was opening the door to her room.
The unnamed tailor had taken place at the bed, while Ruth looked around interested on the wall where a photo was pinned.
"I will never understand why humans need such soft beds." the tailor noticed critically after having moved a bit on Lana's bed. "You sleep much better on your perch."
Lana hadn't ever had the need to sleep on the bare ground, and didn't intend to try it, what she was going to say to her friend if Ruth hadn't begun to speak.
"Who are these?" Ruth asked, pointing on the photo pinned on the wall.
Lana stepped to her side and looked to the picture, even though she hadn't to, since she had looked at it very often in very long nights.
On the photo, in the bright midday sun of a beach stood, as if to remind Lana of what she had lost, she and three other teenagers were smiling happily on the photograph, as if they had no worries in the world.
The photo had been taken before her father had died, and before they had had worries back then, but these were mostly about boys and the next math work… worries indeed, yet normal ones.
Ruth's face became worried, and Lana noticed that she had been silent for second.
"Oh, these are my friends back in L.A." the former human explained. "We sometimes hung around at the beach."
"You must miss them?" Ruth noticed, placing a claw on her shoulder, and gave her a likeable look.
Lana nodded.
"Sometimes." she admitted.
She looked to the three gargess around her, and brought herself to smile.
"Do you want to take a look on the clothes?" the half-gargoyle asked.
Indeed, they wanted.
24.08.98; 01:28 Castle Wyvern, Asrial's working chamber:
Asrial sat on a stool, and half-heartedly dismantled the keyboard in front of her.
She didn't need to, as the keyboard had indeed worked perfectly, and she already knew how its interior looked, due to former attempts. The only reason the gargess did it was because she knew that this normally helped her to feel better.
This time however it didn't help, maybe because the machine wasn't complicated enough, or maybe because her mind was too fixated on the events of the last evening…
After they had returned home and had been greeted by a worried clan, Goliath had insisted that she and Thersities would let themselves be checked by Moore. While there Asrial had had time to think, while her brother got the opportunity to tell Darlene of his fight against the Pack.
After Moore had assured them, and a still worried Goliath, that they would be all right if they didn't intend to go into the next battle soon, she had excused herself and left to make her way to her working chamber.
On the way to it, she had passed the television room, noticing that half the clan seemed to be gathered there and had briefly learned how the man whose telephone Thersities had lent, seemingly a former sergeant of the US-Army, had made offences after offences against her kind.
Meanwhile the reporters, who had arrived shortly after their departure, seemed eager to clear the question on which was the greater news, the supposed attacked of a gargoyle, or the sighting of the two Cyborgs?
Asrial had had no nerves for this tonight, and had continued her way to her working place where she hoped to find some peace.
Not finding it, the clever sister placed the parts of the keyboard on her working table and sighed, starring at the monitor of the activated computer.
Thomas, Asrial thought, why have you gone?
There was a knock on the door, and for a short and irrational second she believed, firmly believed, that it was Thomas, though he never had visited her here.
Indeed it was instead Goliath who entered, her brother and leader who looked at her, his face showing worry and seriousness.
"I feel all right." Asrial said, reading the look in her brother's face, and absently touching the bandage around her stomach. "It just aches a bit when I move."
Goliath nodded.
"I have to talk with you about Thomas." he began.
Asrial felt an uneasy feeling rise in her stomach.
"He surely had a reason to leave." she explained.
"Thomas fled from the police." her brother noticed.
"They don't want to arrest him." Asrial defended her friend. "Chavez just had some questions."
"They would arrest him if they had proof for what he has done." Goliath replied. "And I spoke with Elisa. She said that the police took some of the machines in his home since they were illegal."
"He promised me he would no longer break the law, so maybe he got them before he met me?" his sister said angrily, jumping from the stool and feeling at once the pain in her stomach. "And the fact that the Pack searched him wasn't his fault."
"Maybe," Goliath said, this time with more authority in his voice, "but we can't consider someone as a friend who is wanted by the police."
Asrial held her aching stomach, feeling more and more angry by her brother's words.
"What about Xanatos… or Demona?" she asked. "They would be searched, too, if it would be known what they have done!"
Goliath shook his head, shortly closing his eyes.
"They have changed " he said, crossing his arms.
"Really?" Asrial dared to ask, and when her brother didn't answer at once she added "And if so, then why don't you give Thomas this chance?"
Goliath stayed silent a second, as he knew very well that they could discuss about this the whole night, but judging from the way his sister held her stomach, he knew she needed rest.
"We will discuss this another night." he said. "For now, I forbid you and every other member of the clan to have contact with him."
Asrial stared speechless at him.
"I'm sorry." Goliath said and turned around, leaving the clever sister alone.
The gargess looked after her brother a second longer. She knew it was useless to speak with him, yet she would have stormed after him if not her stomach had started to ache once more, and she had to sit down.
How can he forgive some humans, and even Demona, and forbid me to meet Thomas? Asrial asked herself.
Angrily, she looked on the monitor of her PC, seeing that she had mail. Using the mouse to press some buttons, she saw that it was from Thomas.
The clever sister waited for just one second before she opened it.
24.08.98; 03:34; Destine Mansion; Third Level:
The house was quiet, which was somewhat of a surprise considering it was a house with three hatchlings, one gargbeast and two grown ups, but on some way each one had had their fun for tonight.
Gem had seen much tonight and had fallen asleep on their glide home. Jarred still had much energy, but the training, as well as the playing with the other hatchlings, seemed to have tamed it a bit, but not enough to stop him running into his big sister's room and look at what she was doing with her friends.
Lana had felt good enough to tolerate her brother in her room, something she had never done back in L.A. and even chose to ignore his comments over her music taste, judging from the songs she and the other gargoyles were listening to.
Not much later, they left with bags of clothing, choosing to go with Desdemona, Othello and a pair of older gargoyles who had decided to company Darlene and her two children back home.
Her mother and Shade weren't back yet, something which didn't worry Darlene since both stayed often out for many hours, even when she believed her arriving any minute.
But not just not yet, she thought, closing the box she had just looked through.
Back in the castle, she and her sisters had decided to repeat the evening, or maybe something similar, this time with her mother. Since they didn't want to rely on Demona's good mood, Darlene had decided to search a bit through her mother things, hoping to find signs of anything her mother liked.
So far she had found nothing, just old things, relicts, most of what her mother had shown her years ago when she had been just a hatchling. Back then, it had been interesting, or even mysterious, and Darlene had been eager to ask her mother where she had gotten all these things.
This time it wasn't interesting, even frustrating since she couldn't find anything, which looked like fun.
Sighing, she closed the box filled with the dried claw of a creature that Darlene certainly didn't want to imagine.
She was going to give up, thinking about daring to ask her mother about her preferences.
Then she saw a box lying on the ground before her, and trying her luck, she opened it.
What Darlene found astounded her.
On the top was a dried rose, a rose with a pink blossom… Her rose!
Carefully, nearly reverential, Darlene took the rose up, holding it up to her face to study every part of it. It had dried up since she last saw it over twenty years ago, yet for her it seemed as perfect as when she had seen it the first time.
Memories flooded Darlene, as she took the flower to her nose, smelling on it and believing to still smell the old scent.
Tears dwelled in her eyes, but she suppressed them.
Carefully, she laid the rose back, and then she took up the drawing of a child… or better yet, a hatchling. She had to smile deeply, as it resembled more a tree than anything else, yet her mother hadn't said this when she had showed it to her… She had loved it.
She kept it. Darlene thought, laughing slightly.
Her laugh didn't last though. In fact, it died in her throat, as she saw a photo of Paul, her husband Paul, looking on her.
The photo was fixed on a piece of paper with a paper-clip, and looking over the document Darlene found that it contained every important dates of Paul's life. His birth date, his parents, where he went to school, his wife, children, his job… The information about his job had been circled with a ballpoint pen.
Not being able to think, Darlene dropped it, staring again in the box where she discovered something else… It was a newspaper, a newspaper that she knew very well indeed, the newspaper with the date of 14.06.1997… the day after her husband's death.
She took the newspaper up, and read over the headline of a certain article, an article circled with lines of a ballpoint pen.
Man dies in horrible car accident!
The blood in Darlene's veins froze, as she read the article again and again, and finally she let the newspaper sink down when her arms no longer had the strength to hold it.
"Mother, what have you done?" Darlene whispered.
To be continued…