A "Gargoyles" fanfic by Rydia Erdrick Landale (aka Captain Chaotica!!)
SPOILER WARNING! Well, actually, it's not much of a spoiler at this point, since the "secrets" I reveal in this story are spilled openly all over the place on just about every single Gargoyles site that exists. (And every miscellaneous-animation site that has a section about Gargoyles.) But if you have just gotten into the show and have also avoided going to any sites about it so far...if you are one of the maybe, what...6 Gargoyles fans in the universe who don't know all the secrets and surprises yet, then SPOILER WARNING for up through "The Gathering". If you have not seen that far or been to any sites about the show, then turn back now. The rest of you...go ahead.
I haven't read that much "Gargoyles" fanfic, so maybe plotlines like this one have already been done many times. I don't know. But if I copied your idea, keep in mind that it wasn't on purpose. I came up with this myself.
Enjoy!
But of course, it wasn't quite..."real", as she well knew. Time was passing, but much, much slower than it would be back in the mortal realm. Katherine knew this very well, too. After all, she may have been an old lady with pure white hair, but she still looked pretty good for someone who was over a thousand years old.
She looked around the currently empty room of the castle. Angela had gone out to gather fruit, Gabriel was fishing, and Tom was teaching the other Gargoyles some sword-fighting techniques, for something to do. Not as if anybody could attack us here, thought Katherine. Nobody would dare. And if they did, the magic of this place wouldn't let them get very far. The Magus...well, he had avoided her company for a very long time now. She sighed again. She had never meant to hurt him, but...no. No point in thinking about might-have beens. You couldn't go back and take the other road...
Her reverie was broken abruptly as Gabriel came rushing into the room, crude fishing-pole still in his taloned hand, looking very alarmed. "Princess!" he called out. "Come outside! Something is very wrong!" The other Gargoyles were hot on his heels.
Grateful for something else to think about, something new happening (even if it was bad), Katherine rushed outside with the others. She saw instantly what it was--there was a great roiling fog over the ocean. Not the soft, thin mists there usually were, but a dark, ominous cloud. It almost seemed to be sucking the life out of the air. Katherine tried to walk to the shore and look at it more closely, but found that her courage and strength failed about ten feet away. She gasped, trying to get enough air into her lungs.
Somebody else had made it to the shore, however. The Magus stood atop the cliffs, his long white hair and robes whipping fiercely in the winds--storm winds, winds of the bad weather that never came to Avalon--and pointed with his wooden staff down at the ocean. Since this was obviously a disturbance caused by magic, his professional curiosity had won out over the sickening fear everybody was feeling. "What IS it?" he cried out, although he didn't expect an answer. "What's going on? It has to be some kind of dark sorcery...but it's unlike anything I've ever encountered!"
The Wyrd Sisters, who were standing atop the cliff alongside him in their post as Guardians, didn't seem to know what it was either...but they did know they didn't like it much. They moaned and wailed like a trio of banshees, their eerily blank blue eyes wide with fear.
"The Mists of Avalon..." said Luna, with frightened awe in her voice.
"Changing to thick, choking fog..." continued Phoebe, in the same tone.
"Cutting us off from the world..." prophesied Selene.
"IT IS THE END OF EVERYTHING!" they cried out in unison.
"Let's go back to the castle and discuss this!" yelled the Magus. The three witches turned, startled, seeing him there for the first time. They had only been back on the island for a few hours and had not yet gotte around to kicking the mortal interlopers off--but this was no time to worry about playing Guardian; they all had a much more serious problem. After thinking for a moment, they nodded towards the human man and turned back towards the castle. The other watchers couldn't agree more with the wizard's suggestion, as well.
Katherine took one last look over her shoulder at the shoreline. Oddly enough, the strange fog didn't seem to be "invading" the island...it stopped where the water met the land. There were great gusts of wind at the shore...but no further in, as if they were being held back by something--for now. But what--or who--would DO something like this?
And more importantly...how?
8:45 am
Grey light filtered softly through the tall, arched windows of a once-elegant, now dilapidated mansion in the outskirts of New York City. Through the frosted glass, a vague figure could be seen sitting in an overstuffed leather chair, turning the pages of an old book. From a moderate distance, the scene would have looked normal enough--but very few people would care to get really close to this mansion. Although it looked innocent enough from the outside, strange rumours surrounded the place.
The mansion's sole occupant didn't wonder about the rumours. She knew the truth--that there was, indeed, something dangerous living here, and it was her. Demona put down the book she had been reading and stretched as she stood up, flexing her batlike wings as well. It was almost sunrise--she just knew, without looking out the window or at a clock. All Gargoyles had a sense about this; it was a surival instinct--one last warning to find a safe place to roost for the day before it was too late. Demona, of course, thanks to that annoying--albeit useful--spell Puck had cast on her, didn't have to worry about it anymore. Still, she had made a habit out of watching the sun rise every day, standing in a window to feel the warmth of its rays as it first slipped over the horizon...just because it was something no other Gargoyle could do. Pacing across the floor, her talons clicking on the tile, the reptillian-looking woman threw back the curtains, ran a clawed blue hand through her wild dark red hair, and waited.
The sun slowly started to come up, its golden rays spilling across the land, chasing the shadows back. The light travelled further and further up the side of her house, until it flooded in through the second-story windows. Demona braced for the agonising pain that always accompanied her transformations...but instead, felt nothing but a...numbness at her feet...a strangely FAMILIAR numbness...
Shocked, Demona looked down. Instead of turning soft, smaller, weak and pink, with pathetic little nails in place of strong sharp claws, her feet were turning...grey? And she couldn't move them anymore, either. The grey colour crept up her legs, and she realised what the numb feeling meant...she was turning to stone!
"NOOOO!" she shrieked, yanking the velvet curtains closed--as if that would somehow stop the stone sleep. "This isn't supposed to HAPPEN anymore! Unless Puck removed the..."
Her last thought, before the stone finished creeping up over her head and put her into hibernation for the day, was that she was going to drag the little imp out of that worthless mirror again...and this time, make him do the spell RIGHT.
"And so you see, ladies and gentlemen", concluded David Xanatos as he pointed to the chart on the wall, "if we cut back on production of the new custom-designed computers, we'll increase demand, be able to raise prices, and have a higher profit this quarter for our electronics division. Any questions?"
The business executives looked at each other, shrugged, and said nothing.
"Okay, I'll take that as a 'no'." said Xanatos with a wry little smile. "On to the next part of our agenda..."
Owen Burnett looked around the small conference room, where Xanatos was currently holding a meeting with the top members of his business staff...and Owen too, of course. Owen went everywhere, heard everything--it was one of the reasons he was so valuable.
It was a pretty boring meeting, however, and the tall blonde man had to stifle a yawn. Some of the "divisions" that were being discussed today weren't exactly within the letter of the law--hence Xanatos was holding the meeting in this small, somewhat stuffy room instead of the main conference room--the big one, the one he showed to guests and the media.
Despite that fact, nothing all that interesting was being said about the...less legal businesses today. In fact, the normal ones seemed more interesting, at this point.
Owen sat up a little straighter (if that were possible) and went to push his glasses up his nose...when all of a sudden, he felt tired...so very, very tired...and strangely dizzy. The long, polished wooden table, the chairs full of people, the cream-coloured brick walls...all of it started to whirl, twist in front of his eyes. I don't know what's going on, he thought, but I have a feeling it would be a good idea to get away from all these other eyes...soon!
Keeping his voice as composed as he could, he cleared his throat and said, "Mr. Xanatos, ladies and gentlemen, may I please be excused for a moment? I...think something I ate for lunch is disagreeing with me."
"Of course," said Xanatos, graciously. After all, Owen already knew full well what was going to be covered at this meeting...he had been briefed ahead of time. The main reason he was there was to watch the reactions of the other staff members. That, and because people would expect to see him there.
"Poor guy," whispered the Head of Marketing under her breath, to the Head of Personnel, sitting next to her. "It hits you like that, sometimes."
Owen stood up slowly, pushed his chair back under the table, and left as quickly as dignity would allow him to--but the second he was out of the room, he took a surreptitious look around to make sure nobody else was in sight, then RAN for it.
Frantic, Owen dashed into the nearest bathroom--he needed someplace with a lockable door. He stood over the sink, grasped the cold white porcelain on either side, leaning on the fixture for support, and looked at his face in the mirror. It wasn't very far along yet, thank goodness. Normally, this was quick, easy. But this time, because it was happening against his will, it felt disturbing, almost painful. Owen took a deep, shuddering breath, forced himself to relax, and stopped fighting it.
He shrank several inches. His hair bleached from yellow-blonde to silver white and grew--making his scalp itch like crazy for a moment--until it was down to his waist in back. His body became more slender and small-boned, with narrower shoulders. The features became more delicate--the cheekbones higher, the jaw narrower, the nose smaller and upturned, and the eyes darkened from pale blue to dark brown while becoming distinctively slanted. Last but not least, the ears grew much longer, tapering to sharp points above the top of his head.
When it was finished, Puck raised his head to look at himself in the mirror. Or rather, tried to--his vision was blurry. At first he took this as yet another sign of whatever strange illness he was coming down with (immortals aren't SUPPOSED to get ill!)...but then he realised he was still wearing Owen's glasses. His natural form had perfect eyesight, so they were more of a hindrance than a help. Carefully, he removed the spectacles and put them on the counter. Since he hadn't done this Change himself--and therefore hadn't been concentrating on what clothes he wanted as well as the new body, he was still wearing Owen's suit, which sagged and bunched on his smaller, elvish frame. Well, it could be worse, he mused wryly. If I hadn't gone and bought "Owen" all those suits from a store instead of just magicking them on every morning, I'd be rather chilly right now... but he quickly shook that aside to concentrate on the real issue.
What in the name of the Mother of Creation is going ON here?! he wondered in stunned disbelief. I've never lost control of a disguise like this before! Heck, I can do this kind of spell in my sleep...and have, many times! I've even been knocked unconscious as "Owen" and still looked normal as ever when I woke up. What the...did something suddenly suppress my powers? Was the person sitting next to me wearing iron jewelry or something? No, can't be that, iron doesn't affect our kind that strongly, unless it's in large amounts...
He tried a different spell. Muttering as quietly as possible to minimise the chance that somebody walking past the bathroom door might hear him, he chanted:
"Friendly little spark of light,
Come and chase away the night!"
This spell was used to summon up a small green ball of imitation flame on the tip of the finger, for use as a portable source of light. A very simple cantrip, the kind that Third Race children learned how to do when they were still learning to walk.
Nothing happened.
Growing a bit more worried, he tried another simple spell--floating. He did this one all the time, when he looked like himself. He much preferred floating to walking on the ground, walking was so...excuse the pun...pedestrian. Besides, flitting lightly from place to place gave him a whimsical, frivolous air that made people underestimate his true power...which was exactly what he wanted.
"As the bird soars in the sky,
So I leave this Earth and fly!"
His feet failed to part with the floor.
Now truly alarmed, Puck attempted a real spell--a teleport. He would just put himself into the next room down the hall, which had been empty last time he saw it. Nothing difficult. Just a small hop.
"Spirits of time and space and air,
Take me now from here to there!"
This time, not only did the spell fizzle, but the effort made him stagger and see spots flashing before his eyes. Puck's last thought before he collapsed on the floor was that he couldn't believe this was happening. Fair Folk didn't get sick, and they certainly didn't pass ou--
"Owen?" called a voice outside the door, in that low tone which said that the speaker knew the person they were addressing was in a private room and would rather not be disturbed, but the speaker still wanted to be heard, nonetheless. The voice was followed by a few tenative knocks. "Owen? You all right in there?"
Muzzily, Puck opened his eyes and wondered, again, why he couldn't see that well, until he realised that he was lying face-down and that the substance in front of his face was linoleum, not air. He groaned as he sat up and tried to identify the voice. Female voice, familar...Fox. Yes. His thoughts were ticking over more easily now that he was coming closer to full consciousness. He called through the door, "Yes, Mrs. Xanatos, it's me. I'm...I'll be all right."
"What? Is that you, Owen? You sound...different..." Fox seemed confused.
Drat! thought Puck. He had forgotten that the disguise spell changed his voice as well as his appearance. And he had no practice in changing his voice by human means--after all, why should he? He never had to before! He wasn't sure if Xanatos had told her yet, but just in case... "Yes, it's me", he reassured her, trying to figure out how to make his vocal chords copy Owen's voice, as well as he could. He also added some scratchiness, both to hide the fact that he sounded different and to make it seem as if he was coming down with a cold. "I'm fine, I assure you."
"You sure you don't want me to call a doctor? David's getting worried--you've been in there for over an hour, not making a sound."
Was I out that long? "No, it's nothing serious. Thank you for your concern."
"Okay..." Fox still sounded unconvinced, but after a moment Puck heard high-heeled footsteps moving away from the door. When they were out of range of his hearing--which was still far more sensitive than that of a human even without magic--Puck breathed a sigh of relief. He then continued trying to figure out what the problem was.
Problem? His magic was drained. Solution? That would be a bit harder, especially since he didn't even know what the cause of the problem was. Aside from the simple, easy disguise spell--and the low-level defensive charms that were so automatic he didn't even think about them anymore--he hadn't even been using his powers today. But he had never been this drained before...not after those practice excercises Oberon had forced him to do as a child, not during the Fomorii Wars...or even that recent experience when that humourless harridan of a female Gargoyle had dragged him out of Titania's Mirror and made him do all those spells. Then the Manhattan Clan and some human woman had demanded he change everything back, which meant ANOTHER major spell. Some of the spells not only changed everybody on the island to another species--but also rearranged their attitudes about what was "normal" or not--they were both subtle and detailed as well as powerful. Puck was rather proud of whipping off such complex magic on the fly, even if he did say so himself. And at the end of that night, he had felt only a little bit sleepy.
Today, trying to teleport just a few yards to the left had knocked him flatter than a drunken goblin.
He wasn't panicking yet--after all, he knew that rest would regenerate his magical energy right along with the physical--well, that is, under normal circumstances...but he never got drained like this without using his powers. A lot. It was like something had sucked the energy right out of him...
Or shut off its source.
Puck suddenly noticed what had been feeling so odd and...wrong for the last hour or so...his mental connection to Avalon--the warm, comforting presence in the back of the mind that all Children of Oberon had at all times...was gone! The Fay drew their power from this link when casting spells, unless they thought to "stockpile" some magical energy inside themselves as a reserve. He hadn't thought to do that for a while...and now that the link was severed, he felt adrift...alone...
"It's almost as if Avalon has been completely cut off from the rest of the world..." he said to himself, pacing back and forth in the tiny room--as well as he could, considering that the hems of Owen's pants had fallen down over the too-large shoes and kept almost tripping him. "Or maybe it cut itself off, sensing some kind of danger. Maybe the danger is so great that it had to draw power from each of us, its children, in order to fight it. But WHAT could it be? Avalon is the eternal Summer Country, the most powerful place there is...what in this world or any other could pose a real threat to it?"
With a sense of disbelief, he found himself suddenly needing to go there, to a place he normally avoided it whenever possible. But now things were different. Sure, the realm of the Fair Folk was boring, but it had always been there for him, before. He'd never before had to confront the idea that someday...it wouldn't...
For the first time in centuries, Puck felt painfully homesick.
But how to get there, without any magic of his own? The only other way was to go by boat, but somebody on Avalon would have to come and get him...and why would they? Besides, he had the feeling that the current citizens of Avalon--whoever they were--couldn't get out, any more than outsiders could get in.
Sure, his power would regenerate if he slept (he hoped) but it was the middle of the day, not exactly time for sleep yet...and even though he had earned up tons of time off, Owen never went home early. It was against the persona Puck had developed over the years. Owen was punctual, polite, efficient at all times, always followed orders right to the letter, never asked for time off, never got sick, never made personal phone calls on company time...the perfect employee. People would talk if he took a half-day.
But it wasn't the damage to his reputation Puck was worried about--how was he going to even live his life, now? Without his powers, ANY of them, he was as weak as--no, weaker than!--a mere mortal. After all, mortals spent their entire brief-but-intense lives learning how to do things by practical, physical means. And if they couldn't do it themselves, they would invent a machine to do it for them, sooner or later. (Puck had always had a healthy respect for human inventiveness, though he'd be a laughingstock if he admitted it to the other Fay.) He had had years' worth of experience "playing" mortal, as Owen, more practice than most Fair Folk ever got (at one stretch, anyway) but that still wasn't much against millenias'-worth of experience being immortal. And the whole time when he was "Owen" before, he knew he wasn't REALLY human...that he still had his powers to fall back on. He was never truly vulnerable.
Now, he was.
And he had no idea how long it would last.
Still, he had to go back out there and finish the day's work, in order to keep in character--but he could hardly serve Xanatos looking like THIS...
Almost as if thinking his name had summoned the man, Xanatos's voice called from outside the bathroom door. "Owen? You still in there?"
Well...yes and no, thought Puck. Aloud, he said, "Yes, I'm still in here."
Xanatos paused for a moment...possibly because of the voice, which Puck wasn't even trying to disguise anymore. "Fox said you've been in here for a whole hour...can I come in?"
"Are you alone out there?" came the reply.
"Yeessss...." said Xanatos slowly, somewhat mystified. "There's nobody else in the hallway."
"Come in and shut the door behind you."
Xanatos opened the door, taking in the scene quickly. There were many things he could have said, but the only reaction he showed was a slight widening of the eyes and a quiet "Ah..."
Far away, in the Australian offices of Cyberbiotics, Anastasia Renard paced back and forth, her lab coat flying around behind her. She went from the test tube she was studying to the computer that was analysing the substance inside it, and back again. The Matrix substance would take some more work before it was ready for implementation--months, she estimated--but that was well within scheduled parameters. The other scientists went about their business efficiently, the clicking of computer keyboards the only sound in the room other than Anastasia's footsteps. The handsome middle-aged woman smiled, and pushed back a lock of her auburn hair.
Her...wait, it wasn't supposed to be that long...
Elizondo, one of the lower-ranking technicians, walked up to hand her a clipboard with his report on it, and stopped suddenly, staring. "Uh...Ms. Renard? You feeling all right? You're looking kind of...green..."
Startled, Anastasia looked down at her hand. Sure enough, it was turning green. And she didn't feel good, not at all. "You may be right," she said, as calmly as possible. "I am...not quite myself today. Excuse me for a moment."
Actually, the problem is, I'm far too "myself" today! she thought ironically as she dashed through the corridors of Cyberbiotics as quickly as these infernal high heels would allow her to. It was one aspect of modern fashion she'd never get used to. What is going on...?
By the time she finally reached her private office and closed the door (thank goodness it's Saturday and working today is optional, she thought), the Change was nearly complete. Mystified, Titania watched in the reflection of a compact mirror as her reddish hair finished lengthening, brushed it back from her pointed mint-green ears, and wondered what could possibly be causing this...
Another problem was that, since she couldn't change back (and she already knew she couldn't, without testing it)...she'd be stuck here for several hours. Because none of the mortals around here knew what she really was, and she wished to keep it that way. She had nobody to turn to, to ask for help sneaking her out of here.
So, it comes to this... Titania thought wryly, as she sat down in the black leather chair, kicked off the hated shoes, and put her feet up on the desk. The Queen of Avalon, forced to spend the day hiding out from mere mortals, in a tiny little box of a room. Oh, how the mighty have fallen.
After a few minutes of sitting there doing nothing, she wondered if that secretary had left her portable game system in the desk again.
Princess Katherine looked out the window of the castle's kitchen for a moment, then shuddered, pulling the curtain closed quickly. She couldn't stand to look outside, at that...better to look indoors only, even though this room, like all the others in this magical castle, had eerie, soft lighting that came from nowhere at all. That was a piece of strangeness she had gotten used to by now, but what was happening to the landscape outside...
The Gargoyles--or rather, the "Eggs" as she still insisted upon calling them--had gone outside to roost on the castle parapets as they always did, claiming that they were tougher; that if extremes of temperature had less effect on them than on humans, then they had less to worry about from strange magic as well. Katherine hoped they were right. Still, she did worry about them.
Tom walked in and sat down on the grandly carved wooden chair next to hers. "Aye, your Highness, 'tis a dread thing indeed." He peered out the window himself, at the air that wavered as if seen through a heat-haze, yet the air was cold and getting colder. The wavering effect made the landscape itself seem to be...warped, rippling...it hurt the brain to look at. "I know not what this portends, but nothing good, I'll wager."
The Magus looked at the roiling, twisting view with a critical eye, as if he could take the problem apart and see inside, simply by looking at it hard enough. "I feel...I feel that something odd is happening to the magic of Avalon itself..." he mused, looking upwards with a sharp, searching expression--almost like a dog sniffing the air. "Sisters," he addressed the Wyrd Sisters, who, though they did not like the humans much, thought it best to stay inside the magically-protected castle as well, "do you feel it? A prickling under the skin..."
"Yes, we feel it," replied Luna.
"We are surprised that you do as well, human." said Phoebe.
"Working magic would be unwise here, now." finished Selene.
The Magus thought about trying a small spell, calling upon the power of Avalon itself for it, what the island was like right now, quickly decided against it. He sat down at the table and joined the others in pretending to eat an early breakfast.
Puck had caught the billionaire up on the situation and was quickly spirited to one of the mansion's bedrooms in order to find something for a disguise, the two travelling down lesser-used corridors to avoid attention. He looked down at himself in a full-length mirror and turned around once to get the full effect of his new outfit. It was a kelly-green blazer, white cashmere turtleneck, and matching green silk dress-slacks. It fit him...not perfectly, but much better than Owen's suit. The sleeves and pants were slightly too long, but not enough to be encumbering, and the width and proportions were much better suited to his small frame. "Hmm, not bad..." he mused, studying himself. "All this green makes me look a bit like a leprechaun, but hey, some of my best drinking buddies are leprechauns..."
"Glad to hear you approve," said Xanatos with a little twinkle in his eye, obviously enjoying some private joke.
"Why no shoes, though?" Puck didn't want to walk barefoot around wintertime Manhattan, in the snow. Now that he had no magic, he had to put up with all the things mortals did, and that meant extremes of temperature could hurt him--among many other things. I suppose I'll have to eat regularly, too. Just great. I mean, eating is fun sometimes as a diversion, but to make it a necessity...
Xanatos smirked before answering. "Well, I could have brought you the matching shoes...but they need to be repaired, and this is an old suit Fox doesn't like anymore, so she's never bothered."
Ah. So that's how he happened to already have an outfit almost my size around the place, Aloud, he said, in an imitation of Owen's formal tones: "Ah. A wise decision, sir. I never did look good in heels." Puck was rewarded with a mild chuckle.
"I own a small shoe store downtown, though, as you know of course..." Xanatos inclined his head towards the person he was still trying to think of as his assistant, no matter how different he looked at the moment. "I'll phone in an order and they'll send me a pair that will fit you--free, of course--within a few hours. You're a, what, size 8...?"
"Thanks." Puck paced nervously back and forth across the deep-pile carpet. "I hate to wait that long, however."
"Well, as I understand it, all the Children of Oberon lost their powers at around the same time, early this afternoon, right?"
"The time may not be simultaneous; after all, Avalon has its own time-stream, seperate from that of the mortal realm. But I assume that what happened to me will, sooner or later, happen to all, yes. After all, there's no reason why only my powers should be lost; I haven't been doing anything unusual--for me--lately. Also, I surmise that any spells created by Fay magic that were running at the time would have been cancelled as well."
"But as you figure it, everything will turn back on again as if it was never interrupted once the magic comes back, right?"
"Right..." Puck was starting to lose patience with this conversation. He wished Xanatos would just spit out what he was thinking of already. How can humans waste so much time not saying things, when their lives are so short already? he wondered. It made no sense.
"If the spells have already all been broken and there's nothing we can do to prevent that, it doesn't matter when we go to Avalon. Besides, if we travel there the right way....time won't be a problem."
"The Phoenix Gate!" said Puck, understanding. "Since it can supposedly teleport people to ANY place and time...I guess it could also take us to a place outside normal space and time. However, I thought the Gargoyles have the Gate now?"
"Yes..." said Xanatos, smiling. "But fortunately, I know their weakness, the one thing that can be almost counted on to draw them here--their mistrust of me. All I have to do...is pretend to be involved in a crime, and 'let' just enough about it leak out to pique Detective Maza's interest..."
"And where she goes, Goliath tends to go." Puck nodded. At the same time, he was trying not to snicker. PRETEND to be involved in a crime? "But how do you intend to get Goliath to give us the Gate?"
"Simple." said Xanatos. "I don't. They're coming with us. After all, we might need all the help we can get. And besides Elisa, who is used to dealing with magic by now, and Gargoyles, who are also non-human, I can't think of anybody else among my closest acquaintances who might be willing to help the Fay...or who I can even tell the problem to without being thought a madman."
"Hmmm..." thought Puck, putting a hand to his chin. "I hope they do agree to work with us. They don't have much love for you, the Third Race in general...or me, specifically, come to think of it."
"They will," said Xanatos, confidently. "Elisa and Goliath are far too altruistic to be able to turn down the call to help save an entire race, even if it is one they don't get along with. And as for you..."
"I'll just dazzle them with my winning personality!" Puck flashed a quick, cynical grin in mockery of his usual manner and flitted through a few little dance steps. Then, in a more serious tone, "Still, turning people into another species on a whim and almost killing them with their own weapons is the kind of thing that can come back to haunt a guy..."