Chapter 1

Elisa Maza sighed as she looked over the report of crimes that had happened recently. The stack of case files was as thick as ever, and she knew that she would have to look through each and every one of them. And while she was sworn to protect the people of Manhattan, and she really did love doing her job, she sometimes wished it wasn't so… boring.

Before taking on a full session of torture, she decided to flip through all of the case files. Maybe there would be something interesting. At least it would give her something to look forward to. She sighed again as she flipped open the first manila folder. Tax evasion. Boring. Stolen bicycle. Typical. Mugging. Well, it is Manhattan. And, unfortunately for Elisa, this pattern of typicality continued through every file. It took most of Elisa's effort to not look up at the clock every ten seconds and keep herself focused on her work.

10 minutes later, Elisa had flipped through about half of the case files, none which really sparked that urge to solve crime inside of her. The function of grabbing a file, looking inside, briefly scanning the page, groaning, closing the file, throwing it to the side and grabbing the next one was almost built in to her consciousness. She began to repeat the function once more, as she reached for the next file, and flipped it open

"Winged Creature Sighted". An average detective's interest would've been sparked, but Elisa was no average detective. In fact, she was almost disappointed in the file. They need to be more careful she thought to herself. One day, the police force is going to catch them, and I can only do so much about it. She knew that she should've been more concerned, but she simply couldn't stay mad at the gargoyles. They were her friends, and they had more important things to worry about than the police force. Still, it wouldn't hurt to warn them.

Elisa flipped past the first sheet of paper, with all the basic case information, and carefully examined the photo stored behind it. Alright, so it can't be Lexington she thought to herself. Too tall. And it can't be Brooklyn she told herself again. It doesn't have a beak. And it obviously can't be Bronx. It's standing up. She continued down her mental list of defining attributes of the gargoyles. Goliath was too muscular. Didn't have Broadway's loincloth. Wasn't wearing its hair like Demona. Didn't have Hudson's armor. This is harder than I thought. Normally, when she was identifying the gargoyles, it took all of 5 seconds, as each of them had something that made them identifiable.

Elisa looked back at the official report. The photo was taken at 1:03 in the morning, and the building was on 5th Avenue. All of the criteria added up. The person who submitted the photo was questioned and investigated by the police officers, and they seemed to check out. All of the criteria added up. There has to be something I'm missing. Elisa thought to herself. She took out the photo again, and switched into true detective mode.

The photo didn't show any faces or bodily features; it was just a silhouette. The figure was standing on the edge of the building, looking as though it had just landed on it. It was thin, almost human-like in appearance, but its wings were large and bat-like, and they stretched out behind the figure. Hair was unidentifiable, but it certainly wasn't like Demona's as Demona wore her hair up. It's tail… It's tail! The tail was unlike any of those on the gargoyles. It was a lot thinner, and had a little triangle shape on the end. Like the kind that you would find on a demon. It did seem to be the same length, but it was extremely different from any of the tails that she had seen on the gargoyles.

She began to look even closer at the photo. There was an outline of a coat and sneakers. Elisa knew that none of the gargoyles wore clothes like that. It could just be a human Elisa thought to herself. This was Manhattan after all, and in a large city, you're bound to encounter some strange people. While Elisa's head told her that this was probably a human, her gut told her otherwise. It could be the Mutates Elisa considered. But again, she knew that none of them had a tail like this.

Elisa considered every possibility for a few more minutes, until she realized that she had gotten carried away, and should go back to simply reading the files, rather than attempting to solve any of them just yet. She took a red sticky note from her desk and stuck it inside the front cover of the file, to remind herself to come back to it later. She returned back to her original plan, and continued to peer through files. It was three or four files later that she encountered another file that grabbed her attention.

"Break in at Apartment". Besides the fact that this was the first interesting crime she had seen all day, but the address was reported to be the exact address that the photo of the unidentified figure was taken. Even more, the break in was discovered at 1:45, on the same day that the photo was taken, after the owner of the apartment came back from teaching a night class at a college.

The file reported that nothing was taken except for a roster of his students for a class on Statistics, although his computer was hacked, but the records only showed the criminal printing out lists of his contacts and his resume. The apartment itself had very clearly been searched, as everything had been opened or turned over. The photo showed documents being strewn over the floor, and silverware being scattered across a table. It was estimated that the criminal had gotten in by somehow getting on the balcony, and then busting the lock to get inside the apartment, as the lock was damaged and the balcony door was opened.

Elisa, by now, had developed her own theory as to what had happened. It must have been that winged figure. Either the figure itself had broken in by landing on the roof and then jumping or climbing down to the balcony, where it busted the lock, or the figure itself actually was human and had been a distraction. Of course, that didn't answer the question of who it was, why they did it, etc. but it gave Elisa a start.

Elisa, now not caring if she got off track, picked up the case file with the photo. The person taking the picture reported the creature disappearing behind the building, which he ran to follow, but the creature had disappeared. Must have been a fast worker Elisa thought to herself. It was astounding that someone was able to get to the balcony they needed, break a lock, get inside and hide before this person had ran to the other side of the building. Of course, Elisa thought to herself, it could've known that it was spotted, and then hid somewhere else until it saw the person leaving.

Elisa threw this file to her side and began searching through the others. Now, she was almost certain that she was on the road to something. And sure enough, she was. She looked through the other files reporting break-ins, and they all carried a similar motif. All of the victims had been professors at the same college, all of them had their classroom rosters taken, and their computers hacked, their contacts and resume printed, their apartment thoroughly searched, and always broken in to from the outside.

Of course there were a few differences. Some of them had been broken in through windows, as they didn't have balconies. Some of them had their mail looked through, some had discarded mail envelopes taken, but overall they seemed very similar. Now, any normal detective would have noticed a link, marked it for later, and moved on, but Elisa was no normal detective. She knew that something was wrong, and she suspected it wasn't human.

*I do not own any of Gargoyles, but I do own my own characters. This is also my first story, so I am open to all criticism. If I get likes, I will update more often.*