Crystal Cave

Loch Ness, Scotland

Jan 7th, 1999 A.D.

The fire djinn roared, sending waves of heat off its body. Griff, Brooklyn, Leonidas, and Arthur involuntarily stepped back from the heat. Griff raised a wing to shield Arthur from the heat.

The creature surged towards the two Loch Ness Gargoyles. Who immediately yelped attempting to dive out of the way. The fire djinn turned and looked at the female, raising its arm and surging forward.

"Oi!" Liam yelled, splashing his tail against the water. The fire djinn ignored him. "OI! I'M GONNA WAKE UP MERLIN!"

The fire djinn immediately turned around and surged towards Liam.

"OH BUGGER THAT!" Liam yelped, diving into the water just as the djinn almost reached him. He poked his head out of the water, and the fire djinn swiped at his head.

"Eep," he squeaked and ducked again.

The female Loch Ness Gargoyle took advantage of the distraction and scrabbled across the cavern and into the water. She grabbed a whistle from around her neck and blew on it.

"Hey ugly!" Griff called out, trying to gain the fire djinn's attention. It ignored him completely continuing to swipe at Liam every time he came up for air.

The water suddenly surged and a massive Loch Ness Monster head rose out of the cove, splashing water everywhere. The fire djinn fizzled out of existence as the wave splashed over it.

"What a good girl you are," the female Loch Ness gargoyle said, stroking the muzzle of the massive aquatic reptile.

"Thanks," Liam gulped as Arthur and Leonidas helped him out of the water.

"Thank you," she replied, climbing out of the water herself. "Your quick thinking saved me life."

"Now if it's not too much trouble," the male Loch Ness Gargoyle said. "Who are you?"

"I'm Griff, of the London Clan," Griff said stepping forward. "This is Leonidas, and Leomaris, also of London. This is Brooklyn and Fu-Dog of the Manhattan Clan."

"S'up?" Brooklyn commented.

"And this is King Arthur, returned," Griff said. Arthur stepped forward and gave a courtly bow.

"London," the female marveled.

"And Manhattan," the male said completing her thought. "As I live and breath…I dinnae even know that there were other clans still about. We thought we were th' last.'

"Well that's not true though," the female commented. "Not really. I mean-,"

"Hush lass," the male said, cutting her off. "It's not meant for mixed company."

"He saved my life!" she yelled, gesturing emphatically at Liam.

"And why did the fire creature appear in the first place?" the male demanded, looking over their visitors suspiciously.

"Yeah," Liam said, rubbing the back of his head. "That's probably our fault."

"Aye," the male said. "Time you met the elder."

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New Orleans,

January 6th, 1999

"NOOOO!" Madame Serena yelped, as the second card featuring the fire djinn suddenly became water-logged and then dissolved.

She wrinkled her brow and then let out a heavy sigh.

"Perhaps summoning a fire elemental near the largest lake in Scotland was not my smartest move," she admitted to herself.

She flipped over the next two cards and tapped them both in rapid succession with her 'Temperance' card.

"Let's see how you deal with a double trouble tag team," she chuckled.

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Knight's Spur Country Estate

January 7th, 1999

As Knight's Spur was an older manor house, the lowest level, the basement, was the kitchens, where Bhors spent most of his time with a rotating crew from the '08, '28, and '48 rookeries, preparing food for the rest of the clan. The kitchens had been refurbished several times over the last 200 or so years, the most recent refurbishment was in 1991.

A series of dumbwaiters would transport food up to the dining hall on the main level, and originally, the area of the basement not occupied by the kitchen and storage area was occupied with a servant's dining area.

The London Clan, of course, had never employed servants even when such practices were common in England, as it was too great a security risk. Even the maid service that they employed in the present; an extremely discrete and private service was under strict order to have vacated the premises hours before sunset.

So the servants dining area was instead converted into a small cafeteria-like lounge. A fair deal more comfortable than the old servant's quarters would have been anyway.

It was this lounge area where Lunette, Nix, Cornelia, and Bouc had set themselves up a series of beanbag chairs and were currently marathoning episodes of Doctor Who.

All four gargoyles were from Lunette's generation: Bouc being a young male gray, goat-like gargoyle. Corneilia was a black furred gargoyle resembling Una or Lunette save for the fact that she had two horns sticking out of her forehead rather than one. Nix resembled a black panther with dark fur, webbed ears and manta-ray like wings and a fish like tail, much liker her biological older brother Liam.

Gnash begrudgingly trudged into the room. Cornelia glanced over and gently nudged Lunette. Who let out a squeak upon seeing him. Bouc quickly paused the VCR.

"Ace, give me some of that Nitro-Nine you're not carrying," The Doctor said just as Bouc paused the screen.

"Gnash!" Lunette said running over and hugging the young gargoyle. Gnash found himself furiously blushing again. What was it about this female that sent the blood rushing to his face every time he spent time with her?

"I didn't think you were going to come!" She said, sounding genuinely delighted. "I mean I asked Old Pog to invite you, but I didn't think…I mean…After what Falcor said…"

"Falcor's an arsehole," Cornelia piped up. "In case it helps you to figure stuff out."

"We all think so," Bouc sdded.

"I'm fine," Gnash said, glancing at the paused screen, and frowning. "Is…Is that Classic Doctor Who? I love Doctor Who."

"Really!" Lunette squeaked. "I didn't think you Yanks liked it all that much! Who's your favorite Doctor?!"

"Hang on," Bouc asked. "Aintchoo a time traveler yourself?"

"Well, that's why I like it," Gnash admitted. "I find the premise relatable. It was kind of how I grew up. Brooklyn hates it for that same reason. 'Too Close to Home' he says. But I saw a dude who was doing the same stuff we were, and I dug it. Okay, I never met any actual aliens but the helping out here and there whenever history goes dark…That was the first eighteen years of my life."

"That's so cool!" Lunette squealed.

"As to my favorite Doctor, well, I mean everyone says 'Tom Baker' or 'David Tennant' because obviously. And of course Jodie Whittaker really set the stage for some of the cool stuff that….that…Oh crap…"

"WHO IS DAVID TENNANT?" Cornelia squeaked.

"Jodie Whittaker?" Bouc asked cocking his head to the side.

Gnash slowly began backing away from Lunette and her rookery siblings.

"I did it again," he muttered. "I said future things and weirded you guys out…I'm sorry."

"Don't be sorry!" Lunette said clamping onto Gnash's arm and preventing him from scampering off. "You just told us that our favorite show is coming back in the future. That's AMAZING. We didn't think we'd ever see the Doctor again after that Yank movie crashed and burned."

"When does it come back?" Cornelia asked.

"The new series starts up in 2005 I think," Gnash said shyly.

"And David Tennant?" Bouc asked.

"Tenth Doctor," Gnash said more confidently. "Jodie Whittaker is the Thirteenth…Sort of…She is the first, but not the last woman to take up the Sonic."

"Not the last? I thought Time Lords only had Twelve Regenerations!" Lunette said.

"Well as River Song would say…'Spoilers'," Gnash grinned as Lunette dragged him over to a beanbag chair.

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Loch Ness, Scotland

Jan 7th, 1999 A.D.

Griff noted right off the bat that despite the apparent age of the tunnels, i.e. very old, that the florescent lights dangling from the ceiling were decidedly not very old at all.

"So…Kelpie?" Liam inquired of the female Loch Ness gargoyle. "What did you mean when you said that your clan did know about others?"

"Kelpie?" she asked, cocking head slightly to the said and giving him an odd look.

"I…It's because you look like a…Well a Kelpie," Liam said. "I just figured it was something to call you."

"I noticed you lot all had names," 'Kelpie' replied.

"And your clan's a bit more traditional in that regard, I take it," Griff commented.

"What need have we got for names?" she asked. "I've never understood the appeal."

"It's better than saying, 'Oi you over there, with th' face! Get your mitts off the steaks until they done," Liam countered.

"Fine," she said smirking. "I'll be Kelpie if you like. But only because you saved me life."

"And threatened it in the first place," the grumpy male commented from the front of the line.

"Kelpie it is," Liam said.

The group then emerged into a massive room, lined with computers all hooked up to a massive server. Several other gargoyles, all with similar aquatic adaptations like Kelpie and the Male Loch Ness Gargoyle wandered about the room.

Most had manta-ray like wings, clearly capable of gliding, but better designed for swimming. Most had webbed talon and feet. And a few didn't even have feet, just slightly elongated fish-like tails that they slithered about on like snakes.

"I was not expecting this," Leonidas commented. "I figured they'd be…"

"A little less NASA and a little more traditional gargoyle in caves standing guard over a rookery," Brooklyn said dryly.

"Yes, that," Leonidas replied.

"Me too," Brooklyn said.

"Our protectorate," the male said as Kelpie wandered over to a monitor and because examining the screen. "Is the great beasts of the Loch. And we use whatever tools necessary to keep them safe. Saint Columba himself blessed the beasties and helped us set up our rookery in these tunnels. We've worked hard to protect the beasties and watch over them as our own rookery."

"You know that the Loch Ness Monsters are a massive tourist trap for the locals, right?" Griff comment.

"Of course, boyo," The Male said, smirking at him. "How d'ya think that we pay for all this fancy equipment?"

"Wait…What?" Griff said.

"The local city officials, as well as several of the boat tour guides and fisherman know the secret of the Loch, and have ways of contacting us," Kelpie explained. "It's a mutually beneficial arrangement. We get a cut of their profits, allowing us to get all this fancy tech, like underwater motion sensors and laptop networks to monitor the Loch. In exchange, we let one of the beasties get 'seen' every so often to drive up tourism."

"That is AMAZING," Liam said. "Our clan runs a shop in the heart of London. We approve of your use of capitalism."

"They can contact you?" Leonidas asked, curiously looking at Kelpie as she tinkered with one of the computer servers.

"These days it's mostly e-mail," Kelpie replied. "Back when we started setting this arrangement up; it was a bit trickier."

"Trickier and more delectate," a new voice declared. He slithered over from another entrance to the computer room. If not for his giant manta-like wings, Brooklyn might have mistaken him for a giant Eel.

He was dark yellow, with black and green stripes down his back. Muscular webbed arms, and manta-like wings on his back, but no feet. He wore a belt of pouches around his waist, and a single glowing spiky crystal dangled around his neck, like a tiny star.

Brooklyn and Griff immediately exchanged a glance.

"Is that what I think it is?" Griff whispered.

"If you think it's Atlantean Orichalcum Crystal," Brooklyn replied quietly.

"Arranging everything that we could with the human villagers, while remaining secret and anonymous has not been easy," Eel-Face said, glaring at Brooklyn. "And I'll not have your mistress ruin it by catching wind of it. We've done quite well for ourselves without her, thank you."

The London and Manhattan gargoyles all exchanged a baffled look.

"Mistress?" Brooklyn asked in confusion.

"Dinnae play dumb with me," the Eel-like gargoyle said. "I was but a hatchling when Constantine started his campaign to destroy us all, but I am ne'er going to forget it either, Gargoyle of the Sword."

Brooklyn recoiled. "That was a thousand and two years ago!"

"Aye," the Eel-like gargoyle smirked. "And not one of those thousand years has passed where I haven't spent it keeping my clan safe. Safe from Constantine. Safe from the Hunters. And especially safe from that harpy of the night. Demona."

There was a collective silence that fell over the gargoyles.

"You're a thousand years old?" Leonidas asked dumbly.

"Orichalcum crystal," Brooklyn said, gesturing towards the Eel-like gargoyle's neck. "Keeps you young and healthy. Though possibly at the price of your sanity it would seem."

"I thought Orichalcum was beneficial and regenerative," Griff wondered.

"It is, usually," Brooklyn said. "But I once saw it transform a gargoyle into a corpse-eating lizard god, so it's definitely an 'in the right hands' kinda thing."

"Elder," the younger male who had led them into the computer room commented. "I take your advise under consideration, however I am the leader of this clan, not you. I'll decide if this lot are dangerous or not."

"That is The Gargoyle of the Sword!" The Loch Elder snapped, pointing at Brooklyn. "A known ally of Demona!"

"Sometimes, ally," Brooklyn corrected. "I don't deny that I'm the Gargoyle of the Sword, for what that's worth. And I don't deny allying with Demona when necessary. When necessary. I've been her enemy just as often. Peking in the 1400s. Nazi Germany in the 1940s. Manhattan in the last five years. Enemies, all the way."

"Nazi Germany?" Griff's eyes flickered white and he turned and looked at Brooklyn.

"Yeah, Demona and the Nazis did some nasty stuff together," Brooklyn said.

"You consider Demona an enemy?" The Elder laughed. "I find that dubious."

"Saved my life," Kelpie said, gesturing at Liam again.

"But you admit that it was endangered because you came here," the Loch Leader commented.

"True," Arthur said, stepping forward and speaking for the first time. "I seek my friend and mentor, Merlin. The creature that assaulted us was a guardian of some sort, designed to stop us."

The Eel-like Elder and the short blue leader looked at each other and burst out laughing.

"Merlin?" The Leader asked, still laughing. "Th' Wizard? You'll not find him here. Not in some 1400 years I'd wager."

Arthur visibly drooped.

"You have Atlantean Crystal, Orichalcum by name, hanging around your neck," Griff said. "Where did you get it?"

"Our clan's home is an old Altantean Research Outpost and Orichalcum mine," The Elder replied. "The tunnels snake everywhere throughout the loch. Some are facilities that even we don't enter anymore, the chambers are too unstable. Throughout the cavern you're likely to find a crystal or two if you look hard enough."

"The one you call Kelpie even sussed out how to use the crystals to generate electricity for this here operation center," the Loch Leader said.

Kelpie blushed. "T'was nothing. Energy be energy no matter what. It was just a matter of adapting the power cell converters to the crystals to allow the safe transference of electrical energy. Anyone can do it if they know how."

"Dear Lord don't ever let her meet Staghart or Lexington," Liam said. "They will never stop talking."

"Well it got me to thinking," Griff said. "I was a powerful sorceress who wanted to keep Merlin trapped but alive…locking him up in a cave made of regenerating crystal would be just the way to do it, don't you think?"

"The stories do say he's locked in a 'Crystal Cave'," Arthur said. "But the type of crystal was not specified."

"Are you saying…Merlin has been under our clan's noses for fifteen hundred years and we never knew?" the Loch Elder demanded.

"That's exactly what I'm saying." Griff said grinning.

The Elder's face suddenly went white as a ghost. "In me own backyard…."

"I think you lot are on the Level," the Leader said with finality. "King Arthur. It'd be my pleasure to escort you to the old Orichalcum Mine. The World's Largest chunk of Orichalcum rests at the bottom of the mine. And it might just actually be the crystal cave ye seek."

"Sir Griff, Brooklyn," Arthur nodded at his friends. "I believe that I could use your assistance here."

"The rest of you might like to get to know our clan a bit," the Loch Leader said, gesturing to the rest of the computer room. The London Gargoyles only then just realized that the gargoyles occupying the room had been staring at them.

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The Loch Leader lead Arthur, Griff, Brooklyn, and Fu-dog down a long, barely lit corridor. No electric lighting here. The tunnel then opened up into a massive cavern, with a giant glowing crystal in the center of it.

Scattered about were various stone figures, mostly eroded by time, in the shapes of fish, crustaceans, cephalopods and stranger creatures that Brooklyn thought that he recognized from his Dances to Atlantis, but he wasn't sure.

The Giant Crystal itself was the size of Into the Mystic, and Griff whistled in appreciation.

"This here is the largest chunk of Orichalcum in th' world," the Loch Leader said. "Or so Merlin himself told us, some 1500 years ago. We've never really gone out and checked it against the others. If there are even any others."

"That stuff is rare," Brooklyn said. "I've seen it a handful of times over my own travels. Guatemala, Opar, Hawaii, and Atlantis itself. The first three are dead dry now. You wouldn't be able to find a speck of it there. Atlantis it was ridiculously common. Benny just about freaked out because there were people giving the stuff away like it was marbles. But according to him it was because they mined the rest of the world dry."

"They missed a spot," Griff said gesturing towards the large crystal.

"Or it formed after Atlantis sank," Brooklyn said. "It's supposed to be crystallized magic. Well…The Magic has to crystallize in order for it to do that."

"Instead of speculating," Arthur said. "Perhaps we should see if Merlin is really in there. I'm certain he could settle the debate."

As soon as Arthur spoke, the cave shuddered, and suddenly the soft earth began forming into a massive monster much like the water and fire djinn, this time comprised of warm wet soil.

A whipping, whistling sound suddenly flowed past the group, kicking up dust from all over the cavern. Griff and Arthur could barely make out the shape of the Air Djinn, as the Earth Djinn started towards the pair.

Griff reached for his belt, and then froze.

"Liam's still got my Lightning Gun," he paled.

Arthur nodded grimly and drew Excalibur.

To Be Continued…