BA Season 4: 124 - Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea

by The Barracuda

After his battle with Sobek, the alternate Goliath has found himself aboard the newly christened Fortress Four. As David and Fox try to keep him at bay, they also have to contend with the phoenix as it nears what it seeks. The Xanatoses are forced into a life-and-death chase with help from a few familiar faces.

#124 - "Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea"

"Hell is empty and all the devils are here." – William Shakespeare

Ishimura, one day ago...

It'd always been difficult to avoid the residents here, so many gargoyles and humans mulling about, walking every hall and path, like a swarm of locusts. It'd been almost two hundred years since she'd last been here, last traveled the corridors of this palace but it seemed as fresh as yesterday. Only a few rooms had changed with the advent of technology or the addition of new clan members. A few new smaller courtyards, a couple paths a little more winding than before, saplings having become great trunks with canopies so large their branches started to intertwine.

A couple of gargoyles passed by her as she hid in the shadow of the small cobblestone alcove; the pair was bickering over a friendly game of cards, oblivious to the touch of cerulean and crimson just a few feet away. Demona allowed them to get some distance before she darted off, following his scent trail.

The old gargoyle often favored the courtyards; being able to listen to the palace's younger inhabitants as they filled their nights with conversation, games and spirited hints of romance brought him joy beyond measure. And sometimes the bustle of the palace combined with tight, twisting corridors didn't lend itself to a blind gargoyle. Though grateful for assistance, perhaps it was his own inherited stubbornness that had him politely refuse and make his own way, using his cane for balance and feeling out any surprise bumps in the path.

His scent led her to a small Southern garden and she was thankful he was alone. Every practiced footfall a whisper, she got within a few feet before his head turned; he'd caught her scent of course. "Rookery mother."

"Hello, Ryuunosuke."

He swiveled on the wooden bench as best as his frail form would allow, almost completely facing the owner of the voice. "I thought you may have left already."

"Very soon." the voice said.

"You are leaving then."

Demona was forced to answer, "I'm going back to New York."

His wrinkled face wrinkled even further, brows creasing over milky eyes. "You said earlier, going back meant certain death."

"I'm going to do what needs done."

"Even if it kills you." he added.

"Yes." Demona said quietly, edging up behind the bench her son was perched on. "My actions had consequences and I must face them."

A single brow rose in question. "Alone?"

"I will not involve anyone else in this..."

"Even if they wish to be involved? Even if they wish to willingly face those consequences with you?"

"I have often been the author of my own misery, my son, and I cannot allow anyone to else to be hurt because of what I have done."

He breathed something; maybe Japanese, maybe English, but it was lost to the heavy purr rolling through his throat. "So, a journey of redemption then...?" he clarified. "Even if you fail, rookery mother, you will die an honorable death."

Demona smiled dimly. "I suppose it's all I can ask for."

The old gargoyle mulled her words, her tone resigned. "Of course, I did hear you saved your human friend's life using a strong magic, as if you were still immortal."

"A spell of protection, to shield the child I was forced to carry."

"Then there is a chance."

She wasn't so sure a spell cast by a quarterling without the proper training was as perpetual as she hoped. "I don't–"

He grabbed her hand; his aim belying his blindness. He squeezed affectionately, perhaps to keep her from absconding as she often had the habit of doing. "There is always a chance."

Demona's eyes narrowed; she was acutely aware of the strength of his grip. "Your clan and your exasperating optimism." she muttered, wild red tresses dancing on her shoulders.

"Hope is never exasperating. And I hope to see you one more time. I hope you can bring your egg to term. And I hope the ghosts you carry can truly be put to rest."

She slowly lowered herself, almost kneeling and stroked a hand through his long, silver mane. His ridges and long, gazelle-like horns were his impressive sire's but the ocean-colored flesh was undeniably her own. "I just don't want your hopes to be misplaced."

"What did that human say?" He smiled shrewdly. "Trust in your clan?"

Demona tilted her head. Her son must've been surreptitiously listening to her conversation with the older Elisa. "I have no clan." was her answer.

He couldn't accept that and straightened, waving his hand at her cynicism. "Untrue."

Demona allowed every emotion to run through tired, elastic features, knowing Ryuunosuke wouldn't see them.

But he sensed her response about to be voiced. "And before you try to argue with me, rookery mother," he said quickly, "please allow this old gargoyle his stubbornness."

She sighed, "You haven't changed in almost two centuries."

His smile was infectious. "Nor do I intend to."

Demona soaked in the sight of him for a moment before pulling him into an embrace. "I will always love you."

"I know."

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

Manhattan, 8 a.m.

The entire vehicle jerked to the side, almost falling from the sky. If it weren't for the pilots straining against the controls the entire hovercraft might've cut a building in half, slicing cleanly through brick and steel.

Fox's wheelchair almost upended as the floor tilted and she barely had the time to throw the brakes on. The wheels skidded to a halt on the steel plating and she braced herself against the sides. "Shit."

"Get some altitude, my dear!" Xanatos hollered.

"Take us up!" Fox yelled at her pilots.

They complied as best they could, trying to wrangle the hovercraft and all the momentum currently carrying it towards expensive Manhattan real estate. All six turbines powered up and the inertia almost threw a few crew members from their seats. Fortress Four jerked, shuddered and eventually started gaining altitude.

"And try not to destroy any irreplaceable landmarks."

One of the pilots shot an accusing finger at the gargoyle that'd torn a hole in the side of the ship. "Tell that to him!"

Fox turned to where her husband was standing. He'd been forced from her side by Goliath and the two of them were quickly at each other's throats, one howling and the other trying to keep his intestines inside of him. The half-mutilated gargoyle threw him against the opposite end of the command center and tried to punch a hole through his chest. Xanatos dodged and the fuselage ended up with another large dent.

"Hold still, human," Goliath snarled, "so I can turn you into a paste and smear you on the walls."

His laser long since destroyed, Xanatos backed away from the gargoyle, circling around and hoping Goliath kept his focus on him alone. The rest of the crew backed away, trying to keep the Fortress afloat and safely in between the taller buildings. Air was still rushing through the gaping hole in the side Goliath had torn open, the Manhattan skyline blurred to a conveyor belt of color as the big airship revolved like a tilt-a-whirl. "You're persistent, Goliath, just like your counterpart, I'll give you that much."

"You could have spared yourself this fate but you chose to be clever."

"I always choose to be clever." Xanatos sniped back.

Eyes flared white and Goliath advanced, not in the mood for the human's irreverence. He'd nearly been torn in half from the earlier barrage of missiles and now a measure of revenge would be taken if the human wouldn't divulge Demona's location or use any of his considerable resources to help him locate her. So many distractions and obstacles, when he was so close. "Then be clever now, human," he growled at length, "and help me find the demon."

"So you can kill her and the child she carries?" he shot back. "Contrary to what we both believe her death would hurt a lot of people, including my son."

"I could care less about those who would weep for her."

"Yes, but what's a father to do, hmm?"

Goliath advanced, every bit of muscle straining at his skin. "So be it."

"David...!" Fox yelled from across the control center.

He didn't respond; he was too busy dodging big lavender hamhocks making dents in whatever surface they came into contact with. Crew members scattered, giving the two combatants enough room to kill each other.

Fox knew her husband was outmatched, especially without any offensive weaponry and chunks missing from his armor. She turned and pressed a few buttons on her control panel, calling for reinforcements. She heard that familiar screech of steel rending and turned to see David ducking out of the way of a fist tearing through a console.

A door opened at the back end of the bridge and several armed men ran through, followed by the small, flying Cyberbiotics drones. They opened fire and Goliath felt the sting of hot laser against his skin; he dodged, grabbed the same damaged console, wrenched it from the floor and aimed for the small security contingent. The men scurried out of the way.

Heavy successive thuds on the deck plating signaled the arrival of the big guns. A massive green robot stomped into the bridge, its small, red, domed head turning to scan the intruder. The shoulder cannon mirrored its field of vision and locked on. "Please stand down." it chirped politely.

Fox grimaced at the affable voice. "Just shoot him!"

"Affirmative." The shoulder cannon lit up and fired a beam of light at Goliath; it hit him in the chest and cut a swathe of burned flesh across big pectorals. The gargoyle grunted and staggered back. "Please stop resisting."

"Hit him again!"

"Affirmative."

Goliath had barely enough time to dodge the red beam, searing a hole through one of his wings as he ducked out of harm's way.

The red dome started spinning back and forth, the cycloptic eye hunting for its slippery target.

As big as he was Goliath knew how to evade an attacker's gaze and had already circled around to flank the big robot. He put his shoulder into it and shoved it halfway across the command center. It skidded to a stop; it was ungainly but sure-footed and remained on its digitigrade feet.

"You have attempted to damage this unit." it chirped, shaking it's semi-spherical head. "Engaging secondary protocols." Panels dropped down on its chest, and steel tendrils shot out, snagging Goliath around each arm. The gargoyle struggled before being showered with laser fire from the security team and the drones hovering above. He endured it while screaming in pain and Xanatos noticed the machinery in his left arm glowing as he tried to activate it. But small blue arcs of electricity jumped from the circuitry and Goliath didn't vanish as he'd hoped. From Xanatos' vantage, he seemed to blur and instantly slide ten feet to the side. Like he'd become a ghost, the Cybot's steel tendrils lost their grip and the drones and security team got caught in the crossfire without a target in the way.

A couple drones exploded and debris rained to the deck plating.

Goliath materialized and quickly palmed an energy blast towards the big, bulky robot, splitting it from head to toe. "Enough!" Its processing speed was just quick enough to watch its left half separate and fall to the ground before it went offline. The rest of the robot collapsed into a heap. He turned and attacked the annoying little pests, both flesh and steel.

Xanatos looked down at the wreckage, grabbed the shoulder mounted cannon and tore it from the robot, careful not to sever the power source. He quickly pulled a cable from his forearm and plugged it into the applicable port. His suit registered the addition and, sensing the big gargoyle behind him, quickly whirled on Goliath and fired. Surprised, he took the brunt of the blast in his abdomen and gritted through the spine-shearing pain, if only to try and reach out and grab the human by the neck.

Xanatos hit him again and Goliath was pushed back, talons squealing on the deck plating. The skin on his chest seared and smoldered as he was cooked like a ribeye but he held his ground and actually started stomping forward.

"I...will...have...your...HEAD." Goliath snarled.

"Better men and women have tried, old friend." Xanatos said irreverently, keeping the laser steady. But the gargoyle kept coming and the laser beam was becoming anemic; the power source was dwindling without the rest of the cybot's body. Goliath was in striking distance, his big arms close to tearing his face off. Xanatos squeezed as much energy as he could from the laser's power source before it almost completely died and Goliath pulled his fist back to presumably remove the billionaire's head.

He readied that big lavender bear-paw. "Happy with your choice, human?"

Dropping the laser cannon with a dull clunk, he cocked his head and grinned. "Usually."

Goliath simply growled deep in his chest and swung. Xanatos dodged, feeling the wind of exertion behind what could've cleaved him in two. He went low and forced a clenched fist into Goliath's ribcage. The gargoyle grunted but shrugged it off; dense bones, thick meat, Xanatos rued durable gargoyle physiology. Goliath whirled and swiped claws at the human but Xanatos rolled out of the way as best he could wearing damaged battle armor.

Goliath was on him as quick as lightning but Xanatos had managed to stall until reinforcements arrived. More Cybots came clomping in and, before chirping politely to stand down, started firing. Goliath either dodged or fully absorbed every shot, letting his magically infused flesh take the brunt. He fired off more magic and cleaved several robots in two.

And Fox raised her arm to shield herself from any shrapnel. "Damn it..." she muttered. Though filled with renewed vigor from David's hard-won antidote, she still felt helpless trapped in this chair; the irony of her father's own failing health and his frustration of a deteriorating body wasn't lost on her.

"...Fox..."

She quickly turned at her name being chirped through a speaker. "Canmore?"

"...Yes. Are ye all right? I'm getting chatter on several police bands about an aircraft hovering through downtown Manhattan and a commotion at a construction site..."

Fox turned her head over her shoulder to see her husband in tattered armor fending off a gargoyle hell-bent in twisting him in half. "We're in the middle of something, Jason."

"...We're always in th' middle of something. But a new something is heading towards Cyberbiotics. I think yuir secret's out..."

The phoenix, Fox figured darkly. Apparently Sobek had shared their little hiding spot. "Damn..."

"...I have most of th' building evacuated and XE security forces are taking up positions inside and out, but I have no idea how they'll fend off th' phoenix..."

"Tell them to hold their ground." she ordered. "We're coming. And make sure my new assets are there to meet us."

"...They've been assembled and briefed. Have to admit, Fox, this idea of yuirs is questionable..."

Fox's smile was simply lupine. "Desperate times call for desperate measures." The communication severed, Fox turned her attention to the pilots. "Gentlemen. New plan. Take us to the Cyberbiotics Tower, and quickly."

"Yes, ma'am."

She thumbed towards the hole Goliath had entered through earlier. "And get some repair-bots up here to patch that hole!"

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

Fortress Four was a few minutes from Cyberbiotics tower. Fox had ordered her pilots to push the big boat as fast as its newly installed engines would allow. Every so often the hovercraft would shake and shudder and it wasn't a mechanical issue; her husband was fending off Goliath as best he could and their little skirmish was close to voiding the warranty on her new toy.

Xanatos had been forced into the interior of the ship, out of her view and all she had was the feed from whatever security camera the two of them happened to pass by. Seeing her husband trying to fend off Goliath's unbridled, thousand-year rage on small screens was difficult to say the least.

"Ma'am?"

She didn't answer at first and it took the crew member another try to get her attention. "...yes?" Fox turned.

"I'm getting something coming in fast from the west." He hesitated and then continued. "A big something."

"Friendly?"

"I don't think so." He tapped a display screen, reading the temperature; everything was in the red. "Thermal readings are off the scale."

Fox's eyes narrowed at the radar screen and that big flashing dot. Only two things could throw off that kind of intense heat and move that fast; either a nuclear missile was about to hit Manhattan or the phoenix was coming. "How long?"

"Minutes." he figured. "It'll get to the tower just after we do."

Fox licked her lips. This was going to be close. "Canmore." she barked. "You still on the line?"

"...Aye..."

"How're preparations?"

"...I've coordinated with Vogel. Th' building's been evacuated. Only people left are th' XE security forces and all yuir father's best toys..."

"Are you watching the skies like we are?"

"...I see th' big red dot, yes..."

She breathed, and though her lungs had cleared, it still scraped through her torso like sandpaper. "I don't know how long we can fend it off..."

"...As long as we have to. At the very least, get th' stones out of there..."

She turned to look out the massive windows, seeing the familiar island tower, center of her father's former empire, loom into view. The entire island was one massive facility and in its heart a spike driven into the ground. Cyberbiotics tower was a thousand feet of cutting edge technology, research and development; her father's legacy and one she'd attempted to steal rather than sit back and have it simply handed to her on a silver platter. She felt a pang at the sight but swallowed it quickly; self-pity could come later. "Land this boat near the main hangar entrance and keep the engine running." she told the pilot. "We may have to load and run."

The aircraft tilted, aiming for the ground. There wasn't much room to park something this size and the pilots would have to be precise, especially coming in so hot. Getting closer, Fox could see the crowd gathered; more than a hundred strong, both Cyberbiotics and David's XE security forces were here en masse. Dozens of Cybots stood in formation while the drones swarmed overhead. Fox grimaced, knowing they were out of their league.

Fortress Four leveled out as it hovered above the compound and turned, putting the back end against the base of the tower; the turbines slowed and rotated, allowing the backwash to ease its descent. Landing struts emerged from the fuselage like some great spider unfurling its many legs and took the brunt of the weight as the airship touched down. The engines powered down and Fox could hear the sound of her husband and Goliath deep in the belly of the airship. "How many more Cybots do we have onboard?"

"None, ma'am." a technician answered. She pointed a finger to the debris still spread across the command center floor. "Most of them are in that pile and I can't get any of the others to even respond to a simple homing command."

"Security?"

"Also reduced to a pile," she said, "of broken bones and mild-concussions."

"So unless we get some ground support my husband's on his own." Fox looked down the tunnel beyond the bridge door where, somewhere in the darkness, David was going toe to toe with Goliath. Determination glimmered in her gaze. "Good thing I have some of the best..."

"...Mrs. Xanatos..."

She cocked her head at the familiar voice. "Was that...?"

"Ma'am, we've got an incoming transmission on a private channel."

She quickly gestured to the communications crewman. "Let's see it." A monitor powered on and Fox's brows rose. "Vogel?"

He was stone stiff even behind a computer monitor. Preston Vogel adjusted his glasses and Fox couldn't remember if he'd started that particular twitch or Owen did. "It's good to see you, Fox."

"You too, Preston." she smiled. "Thanks for keepings things running while I was...indisposed."

"Always a pleasure." he said deadpan.

The smile dropped and green eyes sharpened like a jade dagger. "I take it you've been briefed."

He simply nodded. "Yes. If our location has been compromised, then I'll immediately have the cargo transferred to Fortress Four."

"Make it quick."

"It's already in transit from the vault."

Fox breathed and rubbed her temple, far-too-slender fingers skidding across her bandanna and the wispy remnants of her hair. "Thank you, Mr. Vogel–"

"Ma'am!"

She almost gave herself whiplash turning so quickly. "What?"

The radar technician returned with wide eyes and a slack jaw. "It's here."

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

The scream came before the light.

It wasn't so much a battle-cry but a warning to the insects on the ground waiting. A second sun lit up the sky and the phoenix spread its massive wings above the Cyberbiotics compound, a churning, emerald mass of something straight out of the bible.

Hesitation, and then, triggers were pulled either by duty or fear. The security forces started firing on Bruno's command, the infamous XE security chief yelling his orders over the noise. Dozens of nanometer-precise, digitally-tuned targeting scanners zeroed in on the phoenix and directed the firepower skyward; the Cybots opened fire like small tanks. The drones started circling, hoping to distract the phoenix and keep it off-balance.

Massive gun turrets rose from hidden compartments, swiveled, aimed and fired. Having been on the receiving end of a god's wrath when Oberon tried to take Alexander to Avalon, Halcyon Renard had decided to beef up his own security considering the company his family was keeping. And Fox was grateful for his foresight. The cannons were actually having an affect against the phoenix, at least for the time being. If nothing but a distraction, Fox wasn't going to squander the opportunity.

She hit a button on her panel. "It's now or never, Vogel!" she snapped into the mic. "Get those stones loaded!"

"...The convoy is on its way..."

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

Preston Vogel was still inside the tower, one of the last few in the entire building. He was coordinating the evacuation and the attacks and the transfer of the cargo deep in the belly of his employer's small kingdom. He could hear the weapon-fire, the panes of glass only just shivering from the explosions outside; they were one-inch-thick, bullet-resistant, nano-infused shatterproof glass and even Vogel was worried they'd implode at the sheer power being expended outside.

His hands skimming across his control panel, he noticed movement on one of the security monitors; the stones were loaded and being transferred into the main cargo elevator that would bring them to ground level.

He could feel a vibration through the console. He stopped momentarily, lifted his fingers from the keyboard and scanned his eyes across the entire console. It was trembling and it wasn't from the small war going on outside. The entire building was shivering, like a big tuning fork. "Oh dear..." he muttered. Alarms started to go off; the most significant being the seismometer. The Cyberbiotics tower was of course a tall, slim spike shoved into the ground and utilized the most sophisticated damping and vibration control devices to counter any earthquakes or wind shear, rivaling those of the Eyrie building.

But right now the entire tower was shaking and Vogel had a sickening idea as to why; the phoenix was trying to wrench the vault from the foundation, ten levels below. It might've upended the entire building if the security forces didn't concentrate their fire and start taking chunks out of the phoenix.

The holes filled in, of course, instantly, roiling fire replacing extinguished flame and whatever wound the phoenix had suffered was healed. But the ammunition kept coming, bullets and laser beams, filling the entire sky and making the great bird twist and deform to keep from being hit.

"This is Preston Vogel to Mother." Preston spoke rather calmly into his microphone. "You need to get out of this building immediately."

"...Indeed. The cargo elevator is almost at ground level..."

"Do hurry."

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

Outside, in the middle of the throng, the big doors split and slid away from each other and someone came tearing out. A gargoyle danced between the security forces carrying something in her arms. Something shaped like a body, coated in liquid silver as a protective shield. As the security forces opened fire, Mother cut through the crowd towards Fortress Four with Infiniti clutched to her chest, running like a sprinter with her head outstretched and her wings mantled to reduce drag.

Behind her a truck trundled out from the main hangar, heading straight for the Fortress' rear loading ramp. The driver had the pedal mashed to the floor and hoped he'd make the short run from hangar to airship without his vehicle being obliterated by the phoenix overhead. He was following the strange silver gargoyle and wondering just what to tell the family at dinner tonight. Of course he couldn't say anything due to the non-disclosure agreements he'd signed; to his wife and kids he was a Cyberbiotics security guard and part-time cargo hauler with a good benefits package and pension. And right now, he was looking up though his windshield at the big flaming bird being fired at by his co-workers and wondering if the dental plan was worth it.

Peering into one of the monitors aboard Fortress Four, Fox watched as the cargo truck weaved towards them. Once the man got his truck inside the cargo bay, they could take off and put as much distance as possible between them and the phoenix.

Unfortunately they still had a big, lavender, seven-foot-tall problem aboard that needed to be rectified. Fortunately she had a plan. And again, unfortunately, it was a very risky plan that depended on her husband surviving for a few more minutes.

"This is Fox Xanatos to the assets." she announced into her headset. "You're officially on the clock."

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

"Well, you heard the lady, mate," came a thick Australian drawl, "looks like we're back on the payroll."

His partner somehow emoted slightly even without a face and slanted its head. "We have not sought law and order for many months." it mused.

He smiled. "Afraid we're rusty?"

"No. Concerned we are not in sync any longer. I have been changed by my experiences."

Dingo turned and regarded the silver humanoid. He could see the faint green reflection of the phoenix across its skin. "This ain't the time to talk about our feelings, mate."

Matrix swiveled its head away, speaking in its oddly overlapping multi-voice. "I was told to express my emotions lest I cause another incident."

"I understand, boyo, but you know, imminent peril and all that." He waved his hand across the chaos; here he was, in the thick of it, again, all for a paycheck.

"We have not had sufficient time to converse, Harry."

"Listen," he grunted impatiently, "we'll sing Kumbaya later. Right now we've got a job to do and it involves running interference for my girl." The expression that formed said it all; almost fearful if one studied it close enough. "And you know how tetchy she gets when we don't do exactly what we're told."

"Indeed." Matrix agreed. "Your relationship with Robyn Canmore is an interesting learning experience."

His voice went a whole octave lower. "You don't know the half of it."

Matrix nodded and its body melted, deformed and enveloped Dingo, coating his battle armor. For a moment he was startled at how quickly Matrix leapt at him, giving him flashbacks of the last time they joined. It wasn't pleasant.

"Are you all right, Harry?" Matrix asked, its voice an echo in his helmet. "I can sense your increased heart rate and elevated level of endorphins."

He cleared his throat, trying to control his breathing and heartbeat. He never liked his old partner peeking in on his autonomic functions. "I'm fine, gobber, just watch where you stick your tendrils."

"We have discussed this. I am apologetic for my previous treatment of you. I was...emotional."

"Yeah, yeah," he grunted, "just interface with the armor. That's how we'll operate."

The silver skin shimmered for a moment, Matrix speaking with the armor's operating system. Their languages coalesced. "Interface complete."

The armor's jet pack burped fire and the pair took off into the sky. Dingo scanned the immediate area but couldn't see her. "You in position yet, sweetie?"

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

"Almost, dear." the figure said, sprinting along the wall to get into position, a long case strapped to her back. "Just make sure I get my shot in."

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

Dingo's mouth twisted under his moustache. "Don't like being the bait, luv."

"...But you're so good at it..."

He grumbled, loud enough to feed though the transmitter.

"...Just follow the plan..."

"Right." He took a breath and angled towards the grounded Fortress, hoping not to get blown out of the sky by an errant shot.

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

Xanatos almost lost his lunch at the blow to the gut; the armor absorbed most of the damage and he figured he might've been gutted to the spine if not for the titanium alloy mesh. He was forced back, staggering like a toddler before regaining his balance, just in time to twist away from an energy bolt.

Goliath's palm smoldered as did his eyes, rife with light and darkness at the same time. "How long do you think you can evade and hide in the shadows, billionaire?"

"Long enough."

"I'm immortal, while you are aging as we speak."

Somewhere in the back of his mind he thought how cruel it was only the villains were allowed to live forever, but maybe, that was the point. David shrugged off the errant thoughts and put his mind back on the task at hand: survival. He dashed behind several cargo crates and kept running as another energy bolt splintered the crates just behind him. He emerged and Goliath was on top of him; it was only years of training that allowed him to catch Goliath's arm and try to swerve the momentum behind the punch, but the strength was enough to bring him to his knees and the gargoyle capitalized by kicking him in the stomach.

The billionaire was thrown to the ground, skidding a few feet away. "Not so clever." Goliath said coldly.

"Don't worry, my wife is clever enough for the two of us."

"...David!..." On cue, Fox's voice trickled from a small speaker still attached to his suit. "...Are you all right?..."

"Urgh...of course, darling...just enjoying a spirited game of chess with my old friend..."

"...I hate to ruin your fun but the phoenix is here! We need to get a hold on the situation fast!..."

Goliath was advancing on him. "I'm open to suggestions." Xanatos muttered.

"...You need to get Goliath outside!..."

The entire hovercraft shuddered and the massive rear cargo door started lowering, revealing the Cyberbiotics compound outside. Fox was giving him his path out; all he had to do was somehow maneuver seven hundred pounds of raging gargoyle towards that big door.

"I hope..." he grunted, "you have a plan, Fox..."

"...Just get him into the open..."

Easier said than done; Goliath had controlled the battle since it started. David was just trying to keep himself from being flayed by magic or razor-sharp claws. He struggled to convince tired muscles to move and got to his feet.

One chance, one stupid, desperate chance that would put him in reach of all eight talons; hopefully Goliath wouldn't expect something so foolish. He powered his rocket and charged straight at the gargoyle, catching him around the midsection and plowing him straight into a steel bulkhead. Momentarily stunned, Goliath blinked the stars away and Xanatos came up behind him, grabbing him in a full nelson. Before Goliath could overpower him and pop his shoulders from their sockets he propelled them both through the airship's hangar and out the door. They emerged into a warzone, the security forces and Cybots exchanging fire with a massive flaming creature swarming the tower and laying siege to the compound.

It took seconds but Goliath wrenched from Xanatos's grasp and shoved his feet into the ground, bringing them to a dead halt. The momentum stopped and Goliath threw the armored human over his shoulder and into the concrete slab. It cracked and all the air was forced from Xanatos' lungs. Goliath put his foot to Xanatos' chest and stomped on his lungs, hoping to squeeze every last bit of oxygen out. He turned his head and noticed the chaos; men and women and robots alike fending off something in the sky. Eyes drifting upwards, he saw the emerald phoenix making circles around the tower, at war with dozens of humans and robots filling the sky with ammunition and energy blasts.

He regarded it for a moment before turning his eyes back on Xanatos, currently coughing up blood. "You have stirred quite the hornet's nest, human."

Xanatos wiped the blood from the corners of his mouth. "I am a rascal." he coughed.

"A dead one, yes." His palm opened and a ball of energy brewed.

He stared into the maelstrom about to render him into atoms and struggled to sit up. He wondered if coming apart at the seams was going to hurt. "Can't we...make a deal...?" he smiled.

"You had your chance. You squandered it."

"I suppose so. But I can tell you where Demona is."

"Oh?"

David Xanatos smiled. "Behind you."

Seeing something in his peripheral, Goliath turned and in front of him stood the reason for a thousand years of searching. "Demon..."

Demona smiled back at him, baring fangs. "Goliath."

Every artery near the surface of his skin nearly doubled in size. "Demon!" he howled and Xanatos was forgotten. His eyes shot light like halogen bulbs and he loosed gravel in his wake as he tore towards to object of a millennium-long search, his anger and adrenaline blinding him to the subtle fact the demon gave off no scent.

His massive fist aimed for her head, meant to put a hole through her skull. It connected and Goliath was surprised as her head quickly came apart in a splash of silver. He tried to jerk back in surprise but the liquid metal held him fast, binding his arm. "What...?!"

The visage of Demona had completely bled away, color transmuting to chrome and Matrix swelled up, growing tentacles in order to snare him.

Goliath growled and fought against the Matrix, rage amplified by being deceived so easily. "You risk my wrath, little machine."

"Deception was necessary." it explained, wrapping around his arm.

A plume of rocket fire squelched on the concrete as Dingo touched down, grabbing for Goliath's other flailing limb. It took all the strength he had and every servo in his suit working at double strength to corral the massive gargoyle. He figured this version of Goliath might be a little miffed at being given his black heart's desire and then having it snatched away; he was never a fan of this idea. "Hold him, boyo!"

"I am...trying..."

Goliath roared, and struggled. Matrix held fast and started enveloping the gargoyle, oozing over scarred lavender flesh.

"No, little machine." Goliath hissed. "Do you think I have not encountered you before?" Something surged in his buried hand and went off like a bomb. Matrix swelled from the initial explosion like an overinflated balloon, then froze and crumbled to the ground in tiny, cube-like granules. He whirled on Dingo with his now free arm and dug his talons into the steel breastplate. All the power systems in Dingo's armor had hiccupped and dimmed.

"EM pulse..." Dingo said through gritted teeth.

"A very useful spell, though its range is extremely limited." Goliath grabbed Dingo's wrists and forced the armored man back.

Almost every power system had faded to near nothing and it was by sheer will alone he was keeping the big gargoyle at bay. "Robyn, I could use some help here..."

"...Give me a minute..."

"Damn it, I'm about to be skewered!" Both palms radiated with energy and Dingo could feel it through his armor. Goliath's eyes glowed as brightly as the magic he was about to unleash. "Take the shot, Rob!"

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

"...Take the shot, Rob!..."

Robyn held her rifle steady and caught Goliath in her scope. The man she loved was seconds from being either disemboweled or atomized. She took a moment to center the crosshairs, breathed a centering breath and fired. She absorbed the recoil into her shoulder, grunting like she was kicked by a mule. The massive slug screamed towards her target and hollowed the gargoyle's chest, blowing his heart out. Goliath spit blood and jerked back, ripped from his enemy's hands and collapsing in a heap.

The hunter lowered her big gun, waiting for any movement. But the corpse remained still. "That was...surprisingly cathartic." she whispered.

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

Dingo staggered back, seeing the flecks of blood on his gleaming armor. "Strewth, love," he whistled low, having watched as the massive gargoyle was almost bisected, "you eviscerated him."

"...I'm sure th' real Goliath will forgive me..."

He stretched his mouth out through a grimace, and Robyn caught the last vestiges of it even from where she was situated. He took a moment to breathe. "Remind me to never make you angry."

"...How's Matrix?..."

He turned to the pile of silver debris spilled on the ground. The odd-shaped pieces had melted into a smooth puddle and it was rippling, Matrix trying to restore itself. "I think he'll be fine."

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

Trying to peel himself from the broken concrete, Xanatos looked up, eyes narrowed to a fine focus. The identity of the woman clad in tactical black and silver with those three distinct red clawmarks over her half-mask's eyes wasn't hard to guess. And her companions stood out like sore thumbs against the rank and file. "Interesting." he said to himself. "I'm surprised to see the three of them here."

"They're here at my behest, my dear." Fox revealed with a toothy grin, speaking through their private communication link. "They're my secret weapons."

He almost beamed. His pride in Fox's machinations ran deep. "Why, Fox," he purred, turning towards the Fortress where he knew she was watching him, "you built yourself a little redemption squad."

She arched an eyebrow. "You didn't think I wouldn't bring backup of my own, did you? We bad guys have to stick together..."

"Well, Dingo and Canmore I can understand but the Matrix? It did try to eat me a little while back..."

"It's promised to play nice. Or it gets permanent EM dissolution." she explained. "Besides, it can't learn more about its own sense of self on Avalon. It needs to get out in the world again."

He jabbed a thumb towards the little trio, specifically the armored human. "And Dingo's okay with this?"

Fox swatted a hand at the speaker on her console. "Oh those old friends just had a tiff. They're better now."

He had flashbacks to the entire Eyrie building being coated in silver nanotech goo, and having the Matrix forcefully plug into his spine. "Of course." he nodded stiffly. "And when exactly did you put this particular group together?"

"Before I was sent to Avalon." she said. "I figured another ace up my sleeve could come in handy. The Matrix and I had a few nice conversations while I was bedridden and I convinced it to return. He hitched a ride with Mother–"

Their conversation was cut short by a whistling scream of something sailing towards him. A chunk of flaming Cybot bounced off the ground and skidded away.

"What was that?"

"Expensive flotsam." Xanatos looked to the sky, and the weight of their situation immediately pressed down on both of them; more than half the Cybot army had been reduced to debris or melted steel and the phoenix continued to rain down fire on the security forces, crowing loudly. Their victory over Goliath was quickly muted.

"Okay," Fox said, rapping a few knuckles on the console, "enough flirting, we need to go now. Get back inside, David."

"I'll be along shortly." Xanatos told her, eyes level.

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

Robyn got back on her feet, rested her rifle against her shoulder and hopped down from the wall. She couldn't help but grin as she ran towards the armored man and stopped in front of him, hips cocked.

"How did you...?" Dingo made a circle around his chest, mimicking Goliath's massive, fatal wound.

"Magic bullet." she said, as if it was a completely normal thing to say. "It was molded from the Cauldron of Life. After building Coyote, Xanatos kept a bit of the leftover iron on hand for...special occasions."

He rolled his eyes. "Course he did, clever boy that he is."

She snapped her fingers, forcing to choose urgency over intimacy. "C'mon, Monmouth. Have t' earn our paychecks." Robyn quickly wiped the smile away and slipped past her lover, gesturing to the security squad. "Get him below, and make sure he's secure!" she yelled to them.

"He looks kind of dead, ma'am." one of the men answered, seeing the body and the growing pool of blood underneath.

Robyn looked at the damage she'd wrought; there was a steaming, jagged hole through Goliath's ribcage. But the Demon had shrugged off worse and if the spell keeping this particular gargoyle alive and immortal was similar to Demona's he'd be up and walking in a couple of hours. "He'll get better," Robyn told them, "trust me."

"Hunter!" Fox yelled over the roar of gunfire, her wheelchair at the threshold of Fortress Four's rear loading ramp. "Get your team inside now! The stones are loaded!"

Robyn turned and threw an arm towards the hovercraft, directing Dingo and Matrix inside. "Let's go!"

"Saddle up, pal." Dingo called to his partner and like silly putty stretching from one point to the other Matrix was instantly part of his armor again, following Canmore towards the airship.

"You heard the lady, grunts." Bruno ordered. "Get this slab of meat downstairs."

"Hold on, Bruno." Xanatos had come up behind his employee, standing over Goliath's body. If he looked close enough he would see the scorched meat around his wound start to stitch itself back together, the magic coursing through him already repairing the damage. His eyes trailed the scarred lavender flesh until landing on Goliath's left arm, and the machinery embedded within.

"It's starting to get a little pear-shaped out here, Mr. Xanatos." Bruno said, hearing the amount of ammunition being spent against the phoenix. The sound of rending steel was the sound of Cybots being torn apart and scattered to the ground below. "We need to get him into the vault."

"Not all of him, captain." he said all too casually, still staring at that arm. "Mother." Xanatos called and instantly she was at his side, standing prim and proper.

"Yes, Mr. Xanatos."

"Please, remove his arm."

Gifted her autonomy back on Avalon, Mother hesitated at the order until realizing it wasn't as bloodthirsty as it first came across. She and Xanatos ephemerally traded their respective gazes and he nodded. Her right arm lengthened into a large blade, glowing hot from the inside out.

"That includes you, David!" Fox hollered at him from the airship.

But he was too intent on the surgery to look back. "Coming, dear."

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

Robyn entered the command center with a determined swagger, pulling her sniper rifle from her shoulder and placing it against a console; despite the mask, if anyone would've described what etched pale, Highland features it might've been pride. Dingo trailed behind; his mask hissed, threw off a puff of compressed air and angled up with a mechanical jerk. Matrix slithered off and formed a puddle on the deck plating.

Xanatos joined the group with Mother obediently on his tail, holding a wrapped bundle of something underneath his arm. "Canmore," Xanatos greeted the former hunter, "excellent aim, my dear. I'm suddenly very glad you're in my employ."

She only stopped to address him, peering over her shoulder. "I don't work for you, Xanatos. Fox is our director, not you." Her head swiveled away. "And when I'm in uniform, you can address me as Hunter."

He mock-bowed, having enjoyed the little show of rebellion. "Of course."

"Don't let her scare you, Xanatos," Dingo came up alongside, smirking, "she's in work-mode. Gets like that when the mask goes on. Old habit."

Robyn simply scowled at her lover and slumped into one of the command chairs. "Now what, Fox?"

"We have to get out of here." she said matter-of-factly, fiddling her fingers across a control panel. The airship's engines were winding up.

"And where are we going t' go?"

"Anywhere but here."

She breathed through her nose. "Running's not a plan." Robyn chided her.

"It is right now." They could hear the faint sounds of gunfire over the turbines and flashes of laser light through the windows. "The phoenix is dangerous. It bested the inner court of Avalon and I doubt you have a big enough gun to even make a dent."

What small part of her face her mask didn't cover soured; red lips pulled back just enough to show a hint of teeth. "I don't like running."

"Nor do I, but desperate measures..."

Dingo made a sound through his throat. "I'm not being paid to be part of a suicide squad, Fox." he scoffed.

Fox nodded at her console, slowly turning heavy eyes towards him. "I know, Harry, but you're all aware of the stakes."

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

"...Enough of this!..."

A foreign voice within its mind unfurled with anger.

"...They have the stones!..."

The phoenix only barely heeded the voice, dismissing it as easily and inconsequentially as distant thunder on the horizon. It was concentrating on the human rabble and their impressive weaponry. WE WILL FOLLOW. YOU WILL BE SILENT.

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

The stakes, Dingo thought darkly. There hadn't been much talk of it before signing their contracts. "Actually, you weren't exactly clear on that, sheila."

"Then let me explain again." Xanatos answered for his wife. "Sobek cannot be allowed to gain access to Infiniti or those stones."

He turned and opened his arms, completing a perfect three-sixty before coming back around. "Yeah, yeah, stones," he groused, "you keep mentioning these bloody stones."

"Atlantean stones. A gateway as best I can guess but to god knows what." He turned and directed a hand towards Infiniti. "And she might be the key."

The small group all shared a look at the gargoyle currently out cold in one of the bridge seats. She'd been in an out of consciousness, uttering strange words under her breath and making sparks from her fingers. Fox had her stashed in the Cyberbiotics vault along with the stones since coming back from Avalon, staunchly guarded by Mother and her ever unblinking gaze.

"Th' so-called gargoyle spirit." Robyn sneered. "I thought she was a fake."

"She is."

"Then how...?"

"You've seen her power." he said calmly. "And you've read her dossier. Her DNA is unlike any gargoyle clan known to exist, even if she was an experiment."

Robyn opened her arms and leaned forward. "You think she was from Atlantis?"

Xanatos took another look at Infiniti, pondering the possibilities. What he could unravel from her DNA would make Anton Sevarius look like an amateur. "What's that old saying? All things are true, few things are accurate. There could have been a gargoyle clan there once."

"So Sobek wants either her, or something from an island that sunk eleven thousand years ago."

"Or both." Xanatos finished and quickly had to plant his feet on the ground as the floor beneath him tilted.

Fortress Four quivered as it hefted itself from the concrete, landing legs folding crisply into the underside. The backwash made eddies of air like small tornadoes coiling under the smooth fuselage as the airship rocketed into the air and shot away from the tower as fast as it could go.

The phoenix tried to follow but got an explosion in the face as the security forces started unleashing the bigger artillery. To cover the airship's escape special launchers were set up to fill the sky with smaller artillery bursts and like fireworks, went off in succession, both blinding and deafening anyone too close.

The last mortar shell went up trailing a white line of smoke and erupted, exploding with enough force to send a shockwave in all directions.

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

The Fortress bucked a little from the shockwave but quickly outran it. The rearview cameras caught the explosions and the phoenix being swallowed in a wave of flame. The turbines wound up to full speed and Fortress rocketed across the last remnants of New York, heading out into the Atlantic.

Dingo wanted to celebrate but seeing the downturned expressions on the Xanatos' faces he figured there wasn't much point. The fleeting smile dropped from his face. "That's not going to stop it, is it?" he said rhetorically.

"At best," Fox answered anyways, "it'll just slow it down."

"Strewth..." he muttered and collapsed into a seat beside Robyn. The couple exchanged a glance but said nothing, Robyn's hand snaking around his own.

Xanatos nodded in sympathy, mumbled something and then turned his attention to the object he'd brought inside with him. He started peeling back the wrappings and revealed the object inside, hefting it into view; a massive severed arm, cut off just below the elbow.

"Jesus Christ..." Dingo swallowed the urge to vomit, seeing little strings of viscera hanging from the severed end. "Nice souvenir."

"I don't have plans to hang it on the wall, if that's what you're insinuating."

But Robyn was a little less interested in the arm itself and more in what had been grotesquely melded with it. Her eyes thinned under the half-mask. "Is that machinery...?"

"A computer apparently." Xanatos said, examining the arm close up. His armored fingers traced the bumps and sharp swells of the computer, trying to find anything even remotely familiar, but the technology was way beyond even the best either his company or any other on the planet could currently produce. "From the Agency."

"Agency?"

"An organization from the future."

Her lips clenched to one side. "Of course." she muttered.

He smiled irreverently; Robyn Canmore didn't have much patience for the fantastical. She'd rather deal in something tangible. "We've met someone from this particular agency once," Xanatos continued, "a cheeky little gargoyle who arrived to deal with Goliath the first time he appeared. And then later I bumped into his boss. Apparently Goliath must have paid a visit to their home and stole this to aid in his search for Demona."

"Can we use it?" Fox asked.

Xanatos was already nodding. "Matrix, perhaps you could try to decipher this miraculous little gadget?"

The puddle on the floor grew into a vaguely man-shaped form and Matrix stepped towards the arm. "I will try." Its fingers lengthened and coiled around the arm, the ends penetrating into the circuitry. It dug around for a moment until the computer embedded in Goliath's severed arm glowed dimly. "Interesting. It is incredibly complex."

"Is there a database of some kind? Or an on-switch at the very least?"

"There are many safeguards, beyond what I can penetrate." Matrix's head angled, and kept angling until it was almost at a ninety degree tilt. "There is something here...a consciousness..."

"A.I.?"

The Matrix languidly shook its head. "No. Very much human. A prisoner."

"Free it." Xanatos ordered.

And Robyn immediately bristled, instinctively throwing a hand to one of her thigh holsters. "Are ye sure about that? A prisoner is usually a prisoner for a reason."

"If it's Goliath's prisoner, then it's our friend."

Matrix turned its arm like unlocking a massive door. The machinery hummed and belched sparks; from the inside of a whistling column of light, a body appeared on its knees on the floor.

The man coughed and gasped for air, like a newborn expelling the amniotic fluid from its lungs. Sweet, cool oxygen went down his gullet and he savored the taste like fine wine. A few breaths more and he was suddenly aware of his surroundings, and who actually surrounded him. He half-expected a massive lavender hand to clamp around his throat. He lifted his eyes and squinted at the motley crew. "...who...?"

Xanatos stomped forwards. "David Xanatos."

He seemed to recognize the name, and as his eyes adjusted, the face. "Of course. You again..."

He crossed his arms; except for the lack of arctic tundra, he was getting a nagging sense of déjà vu. "So you remember our little encounter in the Antarctic?"

"I remember everything."

The man on his knees had an aggravating sense of self-worth. "Why does Sobek want Infiniti?"

He cocked his head. His ears were still ringing and his brain was still half-asleep at being compressed into a tiny pocket dimension. "What?"

Xanatos pointed firmly at the prone gargoyle female behind him, half-draped in crumpled, cream wings with oddly reflective sails. "Her."

"Oh dear." he whispered. "You've found our wayward experiment. Hello, two hundred fifty."

"What's so special about her?"

Ambrosias turned and regarded the armored human again. "Besides the sheer amount of magical energy we imbued her with?"

Xanatos nodded once.

"You take the energy away," he said glibly, "and she's just a regular gargoyle."

The billionaire was skeptical; her DNA was a helix of infinite possibilities unlike most gargoyle or human genetic material. "That's not what her DNA profile says." Xanatos argued. "Tell me about this regular gargoyle. Where is she from? What clan?"

"No clan. She was grown from harvested DNA."

"DNA from where?" he demanded.

"Classified." Ambrosias evaded.

Xanatos didn't even have to ask before Robyn shot from her chair and aimed a gun between Ambrosias' eyes. It hovered close enough to tickle a couple of eyebrow hairs. She released the safety. "Time is of th' essence and from where I stand, yuir position is incredibly tenuous."

Despite the threat of a new hole in his head he appreciated the candor; far too often humans of this particular age were infuriatingly ambiguous and unwilling to say what they meant without some kind of outdated morality. Ambrosias cleared his throat. "Atlantis." he said simply, leaning back slightly from the gun barrel.

There were muted reactions through the small group. The only one who smiled was Xanatos.

"We harvested her DNA mostly from Atlantis." he added, gesturing to rake back his hair but realizing half if it had been burned to the scalp.

"Gargoyles on Atlantis." Xanatos echoed, eyes bright with mischief.

Ambrosias nodded. "Yes. A very large clan. Probably the biggest ever to exist."

"Who are long since dead."

"Eleven thousand years by your reckoning."

Xanatos wore a mask of thought, rubbing his steel-taloned fingers over his goatee. "And if Sobek gained access to Infiniti's power, or Atlantis'..."

The eyes that strangely reflected the light like a miniature universe would narrowed. "That would be very bad."

"And the phoenix's interest?"

He seemed to be annoyed at his lack of knowledge, as if the universe couldn't exist without him knowing every little detail. His lips went flat. "Sanctuary." he guessed.

Fox shook her head. "But to ally itself with Sobek?"

"Strange bedfellows...common goals...you of all people should know that, Mr. Xanatos, considering your old partnership with Demona."

He inclined his head towards the strange, burned man, conceding the point. Though he was intrigued at how well Ambrosias knew about his life. "Touché." Xanatos said.

"And you just know all of this, mate?" Dingo was skeptical. "Off the top of your head?"

Ambrosias struggled to his feet and attempted to preen himself; he brushed the wrinkles from his scorched suit and cinched the knot in his tie, trying to look presentable. "I am–or at least I was–in charge of a multi-dimensional, temporal agency that polices every timestream known to exist. David Xanatos' little parlor games are a part of that," playful eyes flitted towards the billionaire, "albeit a minor one."

Fox wheeled her chair a little closer, throwing her gaze at him with the speed of a professional pitcher. "So then you must know what's going to happen. With us, the phoenix, Sobek, everything."

He curtly shook his head. "Everything's in flux, always. Every possibility plays out. To be able to tell you what will happen next would be like trying to guess the number of grains of sand on a beach."

"Then yui're useless t' us." Robyn snapped, staring at him. She had the look at someone wanting to lighten the Fortress' load by one extra, infuriating human, via the airlock.

"Not quite." Xanatos argued and gestured towards the severed arm, holding it there to ensure Ambrosias' gaze followed. "That's your computer, I presume. You can help us elude the phoenix."

The man stiffly and stubbornly shook his head. "I don't intervene. Company policy."

"You've already intervened plenty," Xanatos argued, "and such intervention is unconscious on that chair over there."

"That wasn't intervention; that was an experiment."

"I'm sure Goliath and Elisa would argue otherwise. Ever since the birth of their first child they've lived with the specter of a deity in their midst and the lies you programmed into her."

"Company project."

"Well, unless ye wish t' be scattered into separate atoms by th' phoenix," Robyn politely recommended and Ambrosias was acutely aware of the weaponry this woman had at hand, "I suggest ye see if you can turn that thing on."

He seemed to contemplate his situation for a moment; something like pained resignation rippled through his scorch-marked skin. "Fine. But I can't guarantee we'll be able to get back."

"Tacking into the wind, then." Xanatos said.

Ambrosias started inspecting the computer core that used to inhabit a mainframe two stories tall, connected to the nexus of the universe by tachyon arteries, now merged and mangled with a severed arm. "The core is damaged." he said pitifully.

"Goliath was having trouble with it, especially after leaving Avalon and his little tussle with Sobek."

"Ruffians." he spit, shaking his head. "I'm not sure I can fully control it. I could strand us somewhere in time with no way to get back."

With an audible clack of her fingertips on the control panel, Fox pulled up the rear camera, zoomed in and fixed the pursuing phoenix in the middle of the screen. It was a tiny, fiery speck but according to the radar screen, was catching up. The security forces at Cyberbiotics had done all they could to give the airship a headstart. "Seems we have no choice."

Dingo muttered, "Yeah, I think we're going to need a raise."

"Later, Harry." Fox admonished him.

"All right, cavemen and cave-ladies," Ambrosias announced, "we're about to trip the light fantastic." He used three fingers and a thumb to rouse the damaged computer and input what could be considered coordinates.

Light shot through the command center and enveloped the entire airship. Molecules cleaved in two and in an instant, everything vanished.

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

Sobek's consciousness watched through the phoenix's eyes the airship slip into a shaft of light and vanish. "...Where have they gone?!..."

THEY HAVE TRAVELED BETWEEN STRANDS.

"...Can you follow?..."

SCIENCE OR SORCERY, IT DOES NOT MATTER. THERE IS ALWAYS A TRAIL.

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

Fortress Four emerged from the light over the exact same ocean and it took a moment for the instruments to reset. The GPS navigation immediately went dead as did communications, hissing static.

"Where are we?" Fox demanded and most of the command crew couldn't give an answer. They were flying blind.

"I doubt most of your instruments will be functional." Ambrosias offered, staring up through the ceiling. "It's a few hundred years before any satellites will be in orbit."

Fox digested before telling her crew, "Just keep flying straight, on our original course. Fly by the sun if you have to."

"Few hundred years?" Xanatos echoed, intrigued.

Still fiddling with the circuitry embedded in the severed arm, Ambrosias responded, "You wanted an escape route. You got one."

"Where are we?" Dingo asked incredulously.

"Not where, good sir, but when."

"Ma'am." one of the technicians called out to Fox. "The radar's back up and I'm getting a big blip."

Turning, Fox had an unsettled feeling in the pit of her stomach. So far big, ambiguous blips on the radar screen were turning out to be trouble. "What?"

"Coming up on it, eleven o'clock."

A small crowd clustered at the massive front window and scanned the sky but saw nothing but clouds and empty turquoise. Until one pair of eyes happened to drop to the expanse of ocean below.

"Is that...?" Dingo muttered.

The galleon drifted between the swells, pulled by massive sails on a three mast rig. On its tallest mast she flew a black flag, adorned with three swords and a red boar.

"A pirate ship." Robyn whispered, staring through the porthole and seeing the men scramble across the main deck. She whirled on Ambrosias. "What year is this?"

"Early seventeen hundreds, I believe." Ambrosias answered absentmindedly. "I can't be much more precise than that." He picked a bit of severed muscle from the circuitry, flicking it away in disgust. "For obvious reasons."

"I think they've noticed us..." Robyn suddenly warned.

Fox lifted her head. "How?"

The big boat had turned, sharply cutting through a wave and opened its cannon ports on the starboard side. Robyn had seen enough pirate movies to know exactly what the men onboard had planned. "Oh...no reason. But I suggest we take this airship a might higher."

Smoke and residual gunpowder made small plumes from the side of the ship and sent their ammunition tearing through the air.

CLANG.

The sound rattled through the command center. "What the hell was that?" Dingo reacted with wide eyes.

"I think it was a cannonball." Robyn smirked.

"The blighters are firing at us?!" her lover fumed, jumping to his feet.

"Oh, this is just wonderful." Fox spit, wagging a couple of fingers at the pilots, telling them to gain altitude. "Goddamned pirates, they might put one of their cannonballs through the windshield."

The airship banked away, trying to get out of range of a second volley. The galleon fired as fast as its crew could stuff the gunpowder and reload the cannonballs.

"Go, gentlemen, go." Fox urged her pilots.

Another volley and every cannonball fell short of the strange airship pulling out of reach. Fortress Four shot forward and left the pirate ship behind, becoming a distant gleam on the horizon and a story to be told at the next port.

"Do we have a heading, Mrs. Xanatos?"

"Straight on, gentlemen." Fox ordered, eyes on the lone screen pointed behind the airship. "Just keep the pedal down."

"Expecting company, Fox?" Dingo remarked, his smirk wide. She didn't answer, just kept her eyes fixed on that monitor. And Dingo's smirk slowly evaporated; having been under her leadership since the mid-nineties he'd learned to read her moods and she was in a snit now. He'd always called her paranoid but her instincts were usually right. "Of course you are."

"What did I tell you about gut feelings, Harry?" Fox said quietly.

"To always trust them." he answered.

She slowly nodded, and Fox used a single finger to increase the zoom on her monitor, zeroing in on the sky behind them to maximum gain.

"You think it's coming?"

She gave her old friend an exasperated stare until a small chirp caused Fox to turn her head. The radar had picked something else from the vast expanse of sea and sky. Behind them and closing; nothing in this century could move that fast and Fox could feel the hairs prick on the back of her neck. "Always trust them..." she whispered. Her monitor showed a flicker of emerald green in the distance and she would lay odds it wasn't friendly.

"The phoenix!" someone hollered. "It followed us...!"

Ambrosias wasn't surprised though. "Of course, it is a magical creature with the ability to travel through time."

Bridging the gap with deathly speed, the phoenix tore over the ocean waves and every man on that pirate ship stood transfixed at the flaming creature coming up on the port side, sending a scream into the cold, ocean air like it'd been birthed from hell. "It's a demon-bird!" one of them yelled and the crew scattered, the cannons forgotten. The phoenix flew through the tall masts, cleaving them in half and setting fire to the sails. The sailors jumped from the deck, finding refuge in the sea.

"It's catching up." Dingo said quietly, watching the boat collapse in on itself and become a pyre of flame.

"Mr. Ambrosias." Xanatos called to their passenger.

"I'll try again, but this may end up being a fruitless endeavor."

A gun barrel pressed into the fleshy meat of his neck, with Robyn Canmore on the other end. "Please," she smiled, "be expedient."

The airship vanished again, leaving nothing but a thin trail of wispy exhaust.

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

The Cyberbiotics compound was mercifully quiet. After the phoenix tore off in pursuit of Fortress Four, the security forces had nothing left to fight and took stock of the damages. The entire yard surrounding the tower was littered with destroyed machines and wounded soldiers.

Preston Vogel had come down from his control room to survey the damage and immediately ordered every wounded security officer to the infirmary. The employees were ordered to return with the danger having passed, including the medical staff. And considering the chaos created when Goliath and Sobek fought in the construction site earlier and the unwanted attention, he figured he needed to return everything here to as normal as possible before he had to answer some uncomfortable questions from either the press or the police (or the shareholders).

By the time sunset fell the compound was cleaned of any debris, the wounded were being well-treated in the infirmary or sent home and every employee was awarded a sizable bonus to keep them happy. A small contingent was left to keep guard, especially if someone or something else were to show up and start lobbing fireballs.

A few dozen of XE's security team were holding down the fort but hours later, they'd ended up just watching the sky darken and pinpricks of light bloom into impressive view, the faint outline of constellations drifting lazily from one horizon to the other.

Their guard was falling and it wasn't until someone just happened to look up at the right time and in the right direction to catch a faint shadow blocking out the stars. At first he figured it was a bird or bat or something else that made a home near the shoreline out for a midnight snack until the shadow turned and headed straight for the tower, growing larger and more defined as it neared the spotlights.

"Uh," he said, "we've got incoming."

Everyone tensed and a few dozen rifles went up, a few dozen sets of eyes scanning the sky. But whatever the man saw was gone.

"I swear, commander, it was there, in the sky."

Bruno grimaced. "Getting jumpy, rook."

"But..."

A few chuckles rippled through the crowd at one of the newest recruits to Xanatos Security and Bruno was about to send the man on a brisk walk around the compound but the smile quickly evaporated. He felt something, like the wind, like fingers caressing the tiny hairs on his neck and Bruno shivered, forcing himself to turn. There he saw her, silhouetted against the night sky. Her form was unmistakably gargoyle. His instinct was to raise his gun, putting the crosshairs on the figure but he held fast.

Languidly, the figure moved forward; heavy shadow bloomed blue, cerulean skin glowing against the exterior lighting. Cerulean, then a touch of gold, and then a shock of blood red as Demona fully emerged into the light.

Instinctively, every member of the goon squad clutched a little tighter to their firearms, even if the gargoyle didn't even change her passive stance. Her reputation preceded her.

Bruno was the only one who moved forward to meet her, using a single hand to signal his team to keep cool. "Ma'am." he said monosyllabically.

She regarded him coolly. Ink-hued eyes flicked downward for moment, to the human's rifle. "I know you, human. Bruno, is it?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Are you the leader of this...army?"

His chin went up, knowing his bravado was probably wasted on her. "I am."

"And what exactly do you intend to do now?"

"That depends on you."

A low, oscillating growl overlapped her voice, "You mean, it depends on whether or not I decide to kill every last one of you."

Bruno wasn't fazed. He remembered Demona's pleasant bedside manner when she and his employer used to be cozy years back and not much had changed. He always walked on eggshells when dealing with her, waiting for talons to shred his spine when his back was turned. "That won't be necessary, ma'am." he said quickly, before the gargoyle could make good on her threat. "We were told you might come. We have orders to give you access."

Demona simply lifted her head, refusing to show any kind of surprise. "Then move, human, before I pull your heart out."

The goon squad leader bowed dramatically and moved from her path. He shook his head at any one still under the assumption there might be a firefight, silently urging them to lower any and all weapons. Demona sauntered between the XE security forces, sharp ears picking up held breaths and hands tightening on loaded weapons. But she was given unmolested passage to the vault doors.

Bruno followed and punched in his access code, and the big doors shuddered, split and stirred up a bit of dust on the ground. "What you're looking for is on the lowest level." he said.

She only just moved an eye to her peripheral, seeing the human offer a hand towards the cargo elevator. She stalked inside and turned around to face him before gesturing with nothing but a nod of her head to close the doors and start the elevator.

"Who was that?" the rookie asked. "We're letting gargoyles inside now?"

And Bruno just shook head. "Long story, kid. Just be glad you've still got your guts where they should be."

As the elevator descended, she could pluck out the last remnants of the goon-squad's conversation before the layers of concrete and steel became too thick for anything, including sound, to penetrate. Demona stood deathly still as the elevator plummeted, watching the digital display mark her passage downwards. The elevator slowed and hissed and stopped. The doors opened, revealing a starkly light corridor and another, massive set of doors at the end. She walked up and stood less than a foot away, craning her neck to the fifteen foot height of these inner gates.

"...I assume Bruno gave you access?..." a voice rang out through a hidden speaker.

Demona recognized it as Preston Vogel. "He did."

"...We were given our orders but I have to question the reasoning behind them..."

Her eyes lowered to the doors; she could just make out the onyx in the reflection of the steel. "Yours is not to question why, Vogel, just to follow orders."

"...Of course, but I do have the safety of our employees to keep in mind. What are your intentions?..."

"I intend to finish it." she hissed. "I will not be hunted anymore."

"...I could use a bit of clarification..."

"No. But you can trust me to end this my way."

The voice didn't answer back; Preston Vogel was obviously mulling whether or not to defy the orders given to him by the Xanatoses. He thought her arrival here was a longshot at best. Suddenly the doors shuddered and slowly pulled apart, and Demona figured he'd decided to abide by his employers' wishes.

As soon as the gap between the doors was wide enough, she marched through and into the Cyberbiotics vault. Halcyon Renard's treasure trove where he stored anything he kept dear, it was a massive cavern with doors to separate rooms, rows of shelving units receding as far back into the distance as the human eye could see, glass display cases with experimental prototypes and to the far right corner, another corridor kept ominously and dimly lit.

"...I believe what you're looking for is down that particular hallway..."

Demona sneered but slipped down the corridor, quickly ensconced in shadows that seemed to cling to her azure skin. She came upon another door, this one smaller, circular but thick, with a digital lock and scanner on the front. Another vault within a larger one, meant to keep whatever was inside separate from the riches of technology beyond. Demona stared at the scanner; undoubtedly there were only a few handprints in the world that would open the door.

"...Your handprint is on file. It will grant you access..."

"How do you have my print?" she growled, sick of being led through the maze.

"...Mr. and Mrs. Xanatos are resourceful..."

Demona mused with clenched teeth; they must have gotten her handprint from her brief association with Xanatos years ago and her former partner would never be so wasteful as to discard it. She flattened her palm against the black screen and it lit up, a crimson line slowly descending and reading every microscopic, coiled line of flesh. The light flashed green and the piston bolts unlocked in a circle. The door shook and cracked open and Demona used the handle to force it the rest of the way. She stepped inside and found herself in a prison cell, a twelve foot cube with segmented steel walls.

And in the center, a dark shape was hung from the ceiling and walls with thick chains.

"Goliath." she breathed in awe.

The alternate version of Goliath was shackled and nearly completely wrapped in coiled steel chains around every limb. He was unconscious and limp.

She noticed his left arm and the patchy roadmap of raw flesh, as if the entire limb was growing back. Demona knew that particular injury well, having suffered some grievous ones in her long lifetime. His chest was a mass of scar tissue; it looked recent.

"So this is your dark reflection." she mused aloud. "This is what could have been." Her flinty gaze trailed scars upon scars, every one a smaller part of a thousand year long tapestry. Whatever spell he'd used to make himself immortal, it wasn't without its flaws. Her expression soured despite herself. "I can't say I care for it. Malevolence never looked good on you."

He jerked awake, perhaps spurred by the voice, the voice of his angel, the voice of the demon. He bucked against the chains, suddenly aware of their weight and his imprisonment. He struggled before stopping, sensing her presence. Goliath slowly raised his eyes and found Demona standing in front of him, regarding him calmly. "You..."

"Yes," she answered back, "me."

His mouth peeled back to reveal every sharp tooth in his jaw. The scent was right this time; it wasn't some forgery laid as a trap. "Demon!"

Demona watched him bristle; it was as if he'd doubled in size by sheer exertion. She was inwardly impressed but didn't let it show. "So you've returned, Goliath. The shadow of my former mate..."

The chains were straining against his strength. "To find you, destroyer! Murderer!"

"Yes, I remember. Killing my past self in front of you and almost tearing reality apart in the process."

"I do not care about reality, only in avenging my angel of the night!"

Demona hadn't heard that term for years and her heart twisted when loosed from Goliath's lips. "She is dead, dust and gravel for a thousand years. And you waste your potential on a pointless quest."

"Revenge is not pointless when it has become your very reason for being." he argued back, spittle dripping from his fangs. "My entire life has been dedicated to finding and eradicating you. Only then can I rest."

She opened her arms to him, knowing how infuriated he must be to be so close to her. "So be it."

Goliath howled and fought against the chains; every link, every weld and even the massive, sheer-proof bolts anchored into the walls strained.

Her eyes caressed every swell of muscle as it tried to rip free of lavender skin; she was loathe to admit the gargoyle was still a magnificent sight, even if this was an evil, alternate version of her former mate. "Come, Goliath," Demona continued to egg him on, playing with hellfire, "destroy me. It's all you've wanted for a thousand years."

He was screaming now, eyes hemorrhaging white light.

"I know how it feels to live for nothing but vengeance, and to be denied that vengeance for so long is worse than death."

The chains were holding but Goliath's anger was reaching a boiling point. To have the demon so close to him after so many centuries was causing him to froth at the mouth but he still couldn't break free. She was smiling at him, taunting him and he could only hear the last death rattle of his mate gurgling through a throatful of blood on the Wyvern stones. He opened his hands and welled energy in his palms behind his back; his only chance might strip the flesh from his body but if it either free him or did the same damage to the demon so be it.

Demona quickly noticed the bloom of color coming from behind his back and could sense the sharp sting of magic in the stale air of the cell. She raised her hands with the intent to gouge her claws into the deep, soft flesh of his neck and tear out his esophagus but she couldn't get close enough. "You fool!"

He howled and unleashed the magic in its rawest form; with no direction or thought behind the spell it went off like a bomb and filled the small chamber with enough energy to light the Cyberbiotics Tower for an entire day. It exploded and the cell barely held together, funneling the energy out the door and down the corridor into the main vault. Demona was blown free and sent hurtling through that corridor, hitting and rolling like a ragdoll. The chains around Goliath weren't quite destroyed but the damage had been done, the steel compromised and welds weakened.

He hung limply, smoldering, the flashpoint of an explosion of his own making. But his hands were free of the shackles, due to the fact he'd almost blown them clean off; he had third degree burns from talon-tip to forearm. His ears ringing and vision blurred, Goliath lifted his arms and wrenched on the chains. They pulled from the wall and broke apart, falling in chunks to his feet. He staggered through the cell door and down the corridor, ending up in the vault.

But the explosion hadn't gone unnoticed. Preston was watching with multiple eyes in the ceiling and walls. He was about to signal for Bruno and his squad when a high-pitched panther scream split the vault's eerie silence. Red eyes pierced the gloom and Demona came screaming towards him.

Claws out, she raked her talons down his face and nearly removed his eyes. He howled, tried to dodge but Demona was on him, using his injuries to her advantage and every last bit of fighting experience from a thousand years to inflict as much damage as possible. She tore flesh and severed tendons, gouging muscle and shredded to the bone, her bloodlust no longer contained. "Where's your vaunted warrior prowess, Goliath?! Have you become so impotent over a thousand years?!"

She grabbed him by the scruff and dragged him out of the vault and into the corridor towards the elevator doors. Before Goliath could react she threw him against the back of the cab; Demona wasted no time and bolted towards him, sprinting so fast she was outrunning the light of her eyes. She pounced on him before he could regain his bearings, slashing at him and spattering blood on the clean polished walls. He swatted at her in his haste and Demona ended up against the far wall. She turned, hit the ground level button and leapt back into the fray. The elevator lurched upwards as the two gargoyles beat the hell out of each other, denting the steel and making echoes with their growls.

Ten levels up, the elevator dinged and the doors opened. A tangle of hissing gargoyle fury rolled out into the compound, Demona and Goliath locked in a death struggle. The goon-squad scattered and formed a periphery around the combatants, rifles trained on different body parts but they didn't seem to care. Their combined fury had narrowed the world around them to just two inhabitants and anger dominated their higher functions.

This was primal rage at its purest.

Goliath was using his forearms to block her claws as his hands recuperated but he soon felt the nerve endings repair and the meat bubble back around his bones. Demona aimed another hand at him and he caught her by the wrist, pulling her close enough to growl in her ear. "I will show you prowess, demon..."

She answered with a leathery snarl and flaming eyes.

The goon-squad had widened their circle to give the gargoyles room enough to kill each other, keeping their weapons trained.

"None of you fools interfere!" Demona screamed, seeing the humans clutch to their rifles like hatchlings in the dark.

Bruno puckered his mouth, licking the sweat from his upper lip. He had the means to put them both down but the timely intrusion of a hand on his shoulder halted that idea in its infancy; he whirled on the owner. Preston Vogel had come down from his tower. "Should we contain them?" he asked, his tone a little frantic.

The stiff pale man shook his head. "No. My orders were to let them kill each other." His eyes flitted to the side, as even he wasn't immune to the spectacle of two gargoyles locked in battle. "If that's even possible..."

Bruno's jaw ground beneath the chin-strap. "So we just sit back and watch?"

"If need be, but if Demona loses the upper hand it will fall on you to step in where she's failed."

He bristled as the weight of his responsibility settled on his shoulders and his right hand unconsciously stroked the ammunition clip strapped to his belt; a few precious magic bullets made from the Cauldron of Life; the last line of defense against an immortal. "Understood." was all he said.

Goliath wrenched Demona loose and threw her to the ground. She hit with bone-breaking force but managed to use the momentum to roll away before the bigger gargoyle could skewer her. She tilted up, dug her foot into the concrete and raced back towards him before he could counter; her claws scraped lavender flesh and she gouged out a chunk of meat from his abdomen. He roared in pain but ignored it as best he could, considering the demon wouldn't allow him the time to recover. He pulled his wings in to protect from her claws and jerked his shoulder into her lithe form, the kinetic energy directed at Demona like being hit by a bus.

She was sent sprawling to the ground and a shadow quickly loomed over her.

Goliath's eyes bathed her in white light and his fist came down with the intent to punch through her, but Demona caught it just before that lavender hamhock had the chance, inches from her stomach, from her womb, from the hatchling inside. It was instinct she figured, but instinct to stay alive or instinct to protect the child she was forced to carry. Both hands staved off Goliath's greater strength.

"The demon protects her spawn?" he growled in mock-surprise.

Demona's eyes flicked down for just a moment but Goliath caught the indecision.

"Ironic, considering your penchant for destruction." he hissed, driving that fist ever downwards. "How many lives have you destroyed? How many innocents have you murdered?! How much more pain will you cause?!"

"...no...more..." she gritted. "...tonight...I end it..."

"My sentiments exactly, demon. A thousand years culminates with your spilled blood and my hunt is finally over." His strength won out and his hand flattened on her stomach, pushing the swelled flesh downwards. Demona mewled and tried to keep any outward sign of pain or submission to a minimum but her thoughts were damnably centered on the hatchling she carried; the combination of the ninja and her clone, it sickened her and yet here she was fighting with all her strength to keep it from being harmed despite Alexander's spell.

A ghostly red glow bloomed from under his hand and Demona knew he was preparing a raw charge of magic. He was going to punch a hole straight through her. With one last thread of adrenaline, Demona twisted his hand away and rolled under when he faltered, slipping from his grasp. But he'd already summoned the magic and sent it towards her in a blast of energy. She only barely dodged; it scraped her left side and sent her spinning.

The goon-squad had to scatter before becoming collateral damage, the wild shot tearing through the compound, making a scorched line in the distant concrete wall.

"Jesus Christ..." Bruno muttered. "If it's not a flaming bird it's gargoyles..."

"Steady, commander." Preston advised him, rightly keeping his distance. "Not yet."

Demona had spiraled, fumbled but stayed on her feet, using her speed to counter Goliath's brawn. He was on her as a hungry wolf would track his prey and threw himself at her. Demona barely had time to turn, grab his arms and used her leverage to flip him over her. But Goliath already had this particular move choreographed and twisted to land on his feet, grabbing Demona and hurling her into the ground. She hit, stifled a cry of pain and rolled away from his next blow; his fist cratered the concrete.

He whirled, following every labored movement she made as she tried to put some distance between them. "I know your every move, demon! Every dream, every thought! I know you better than you know yourself."

Unexpectedly, she lurched towards him and threw her hands across his face, wetting the air with his blood. "And I know you, Goliath! Your arrogance will be your death!"

Goliath staggered back, blood squeezing through his fingers.

"I'm here to exorcise my own demons, Goliath," eyes went blood red, "starting with you."

Pulling his hand away from his face with a wet slurp and strings of congealing blood, Goliath growled through the pain. Blinking the red haze from his vision, the blurry cerulean form of Demona sharpened into deathly, screaming focus, her hands reaching out to rend flesh from bone. She speared her right hand into his throat and Goliath gurgled as his neck was torn open; he caught her forearm and tried to throw her off before her arm punched straight through him. Her left hand clamped to the side of his skull and her thumb gouged into his eye. He bellowed and it only inflamed Demona more, hearing him cry out in pain. She used every muscle in her right arm to shove her hand further into Goliath's throat; she had all the intention to remove his head and display it over her mantle. She grit her teeth and felt the meat slide down her wrist.

In one last desperate move Goliath clamped down on her forearm enough to break bone and ripped her hand from his neck. Demona collapsed to the ground and Goliath put a big hand over the hole in his throat. She shot at his torso and hoped to force the breath out of him but Goliath planted himself and flipped her over and into the ground; the humans in the distance swore they felt the ground shake as Demona crumpled.

As his vocal cords slithered back together, a raptor growl vibrated through his damaged throat. But he didn't need a voice for what he was about to do. His raised his arm, his right hand brimming with magic and hoped to crush her skull against the concrete.

The goon-squad raised their rifles, seeing the prospective death-blow about to land. But it wouldn't be a bullet to reach Goliath first, it would be a bolt of lightning streaking through the compound. Like a storm had formed directly over the compound, a lance of electricity tore through Goliath. He screamed and toppled, a steaming mass of gargoyle crumpled on the ground.

"Now, laddie, that's no way to treat a lady."

Breathing raggedly, Demona turned her head and saw a pair of steel-gauntleted boots stroll towards her. She struggled to her knees, wiping blood from her mouth. "You're late."

With a grin that split rough-hewn features, Macbeth offered a hand. "Be glad I came at all, Demona. Th' authorities are a little paranoid about anything flying around Manhattan right now, considering. I had t' be cautious."

She brushed him off and got to her feet on her own strength. In his right hand his lightning gun was smoldering at the tip, scorched from the blast; he'd overloaded it to take down Goliath. Looking up, she saw his personal hovercraft lowering in position over his prone form. "He'll shrug off your blast soon."

Paying her no mind, he just nodded while fiddling with a remote control. "I'm aware." The bottom hatch retracted from the hovercraft's underside, and a cable spooled out. A large set of clamps was attached to the end. "Get him secured, quickly."

Demona cricked her neck and numbly fingered the fresh wounds Goliath had inflicted. Alexander's protection spell was raw and unrefined but it seemed to be serving its purpose; her wounds were slowly knitting together. She lurched towards the fallen gargoyle and snatched the cable hanging from the sky. He groaned and Demona knew she had little time. The big clamps meant for loading cargo were bound around Goliath's chest, waist and legs, like some massive bird's claw.

His eyes suddenly shot open and a hand clamped around her throat. Demona's next breath wrenched in her esophagus, her airway constricted. Their gazes scraped against the others' and Demona saw depths she'd never seen before.

Macbeth quickly reeled in the cable and Goliath was lifted from the ground, his hand around Demona's neck tearing free but not without leaving a few talon marks behind.

"You all right?" Macbeth asked.

Demona cupped a hand around her throat and closed her eyes. "Not yet."

Coming up alongside the two, Bruno craned his neck to see a struggling Goliath being loaded into the hovercraft. "Where are you taking him?"

"It doesn't concern you, human." Demona hissed.

"Professional courtesy." Preston played mediator, interjecting himself between the two. "You were allowed access at the behest of the Xanatoses. At the very least you could reciprocate with information."

The gargoyle sneered and snorted a hot breath, but responded curtly, "We're taking him away, far beyond anyone's reach." She turned on the ball of her big gargoyle foot and stalked away towards the ladder. "Be glad of it."

Once Demona was inside the cockpit the hovercraft lifted off and shot away into the night sky, becoming just another prick of light.

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

Dingo was a little awed at the sight; he was reminded of home, if one were to head out from civilization in a straight line and head deeper into Australia's tropical forests it might've looked something like what sprawled before him outside the airship's big front windshield. Towering coniferous trees, massive ferns, misty swamps tucked in between, ripples coiling through the water in the wake of something unseen skittering from the roar of Fortress Four's turbines as it passed overhead.

He made a face, muscles pulling on muscles and his moustache bristled as every individual hair rippled from one end to the other. "Strewth..." he muttered quietly. "We really here, millions of years in the past."

Even his taciturn girlfriend was a little slack-jawed as she gazed out at the world half a hundred million years before she was born, Robyn seeing something gliding in the distant sky.

"Yer going to catch flies, Rob." Dingo leaned in and whispered. Her mouth quickly clamped shut and twisted towards him with a hint of a frown. He figured her eyes were dangerously thin behind the mask's lenses.

"Funny, Monmouth..."

Something massive cast a shadow over the airship and everyone turned their heads to what could've dwarfed Fortress Four; a mottled grey trunk of flesh unfurled in front of them, blocking the morning sun. Attached near the top was a slim head with bulbous nostrils and beady black eyes that scrutinized the big metal machine flying towards it.

"Interesting." Matrix intoned. "Genus Diplodocidae. We are in the late Jurassic."

"Yeah," Dingo growled irritably and pointed a finger out the windshield, "I loved the movie but we're about to make the beast a hood ornament!"

Startled by the intrusive future technology the Diplodocus reared up on its hind legs, and the airship had to bend around its massive head and neck to prevent from taking it clean off. The pilots jerked, accelerated past the creature and shot each other a look of relief.

"Nice flying, gentlemen," Fox told them proudly, "I'm sure a bonus is in order for your commendable skills in avoiding dinosaur roadkill."

The lead pilot blew out a breath and nodded. And here he thought dodging a dinosaur was the weirdest thing he'd do or see today.

Through the French revolution, the building of the ancient pyramids, the Cretaceous, the eighties, they were slipping from one end of the lifespan of the earth to the other. But every time the phoenix tracked them to the specific time period, showing up on their tails within minutes. It was cat and mouse on a cosmic scale and they weren't any closer to escaping.

The inevitable seemed to hover like an open hand grazing fingertips down their necks. They'd gone to war and had run through time against this creature and it still kept coming.

Tearing her eyes away from the awe-inspiring sight of earth sixty-five million years in the past Fox looked at her crew; they were exhausted and running on empty. She only had a few Cybots left to supplement the command crew but the human element was weakening. She reached out for her husband. "How long can we run?" she said quietly.

He tensed underneath his half-shredded armor. "As long as we have to."

"I think we have to realize neither of us have a plan B."

"There's always a plan B."

Her face clenched, squeezing together towards the center; either David had something up his proverbial sleeve or he was clinging to a false sense of hope, stubbornly refusing to concede. "Maybe not this time."

"Take us out of here, Ambrosias."

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

The slip of light faded and Fortress Four was expelled at full speed, returning over the empty ocean. Sixty-five million years had passed and the continents had shifted back into their familiar, present-day places, putting the airship over the wide expanse of the Atlantic.

Blinking his eyes from the lightshow, Dingo whirled on Ambrosias. "Where are we now?"

The strange man from the future was nonchalant. "Present time, give or take a couple of days."

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

Eyrie building

He rubbed a hand across the stubble and wondered how long he'd been awake. Seemed like days, maybe a month. Jason was keeping himself held together by caffeine and little else.

The news reports were still repeating, Elisa was still at police headquarters, Maria Chavez had been suspended and would meet with Internal Affairs soon and the clan still had yet to come home. And of course his employers had gone missing after a couple of scuffles downtown, first with some psychotic gargoyles and then with the phoenix at Cyberbiotics Tower. They'd escaped aboard the newly christened Fortress Four with the Atlantean stones and vanished into thin air.

Even the GPS tracker couldn't find them and it had eyes across the planet. For a day and a half he'd heard nothing but held his post as he always did, just like a good pseudo Owen Burnett.

Maybe he'd have a shower, and check in on Liberty.

He rolled away from his computer and almost made it to the door when a funny little chirping sound caught his ear and he swiveled on the spot. A screen had lit up, overlaid with a red dot on a world map. "What th' hell?" he whispered, pushing himself back towards the screen. The little flashing dot was pulsating on his screen and immediately, a horizontal and vertical line started from the top and side of the screen and quickly intersected on top. Coordinates were quickly displayed, in the middle of the Atlantic. "There ye are."

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

"Give or take?" Dingo fumed at him. "You'd better be a little more specific, mate."

Lifting his attention from the severed arm and computer and looking annoyed he had to do so to converse with someone a few rungs down on the evolutionary ladder, Ambrosias said levelly, "You're lucky I was able to return you home at all."

"We didn't ask to come home." Xanatos barked imperiously. "Keep going."

Ambrosias lazily rolled his head around to the billionaire. "Until what, you expend your fuel? Your manpower, your sanity? How long do you think you can run through the timestream before the phoenix catches up?"

"As long as we have to."

"No," he said defiantly, "this is pointless and I won't be a party to it."

The familiar feeling of a gun barrel being pressed to his neck returned. Robyn was intent on reminding him who held the leverage. "I don't mean t' be rude but yuir poker hand is very weak."

"Twenty-first century troglodytes..." Ambrosias sighed and wondered if the Scottish woman actually had the heart to pull the trigger if he refused. "Listen, kill me or not, I don't care. We can keep jumping from one end of time to the other but the mainframe is seriously damaged and I doubt it will hold out for much longer. This may be the last time you'll see home."

Xanatos' features darkened; he'd no intention of stranding everyone on board in some random year but the alternative wasn't much more pleasant. "Fox, where are we?"

"North Atlantic, west of the UK."

The location couldn't have been accidental. "Did you bring us here?" he asked Ambrosias.

"No, actually, just to this time..." His expression shifted, as if he was mentally chastising himself for missing an obvious detail lost to everyone but himself. His head quickly tilted back, the man staring up through the roof. "Ah."

"What?"

"Randomness is rarely random."

His mouth turned down at the corners at the man's cryptic rambling. "And riddles are the province of the weak-minded."

"Only those who don't get them–"

"Gentlemen!" Fox's voice cut through. "We have more pressing problems." A distant dot was in the rearview, the phoenix dogging them. It was just on the edge of the radar, a persistent little splotch of red against the black background. "Maybe we should risk traveling again..." she told her husband.

"And risk getting stuck in time." he exhaled, faced with two unfavorable decisions. He turned to the monitor where the phoenix was catching up, steadily growing larger. "Tell the crew to disembark, Fox." Xanatos said. "You and I will continue the chase."

She looked up and saw the grim determination that wouldn't brook an argument. "You sure?"

Only his flint-dark pupils flicked downward. "No."

Fox sucked on her lower lip and nodded; she was about to make preparations to tell the airship's crew when a steel-gloved hand slipped into her peripheral, motioning to the screen.

"Uh, Fox?" Dingo called to his boss. "Before we start abandoning ship, our little birdie friend just disappeared."

Fox anxiously whirled on the monitor. The dot on the screen had vanished and every other monitor didn't show a single color but gradient shades of blue from sea to sky. "Okay," she whispered, steepling her fingers much like her father did, "where'd you go?"

"Ahead of us!" Robyn yelled, pointing a finger out the massive windshield.

From small radar-screen blob to massive, terrifying obstacle, the phoenix suddenly appeared directly in front of the airship. It just blinked into existence, like it'd been waiting.

And Ambrosias made a face; it was almost admiration for the cunning. "It went back in time just before us." he said admiringly. "And all it had to do was wait for us to run into it...clever beast..."

The pilots had no chance to react; they swerved to starboard but the phoenix was too close and allowed itself to be rammed head on. Taking the brunt of the impact, it curled around the side and enveloped the portside engines. Green flame coiled through the spinning turbines and they coughed black smoke on the other side, torched from the inside out. They shook and wobbled and lost power.

The airship shuddered and started to bank to the side. The pilots' arms were nearly wrenched from their sockets from the control yokes suddenly snapping to one side.

"We've lost all three port engines! They've flamed out!"

As the airship started losing altitude, the front end tipped, giving everyone on the command deck a good, wide view of the expanse of ocean they were heading for. The hull groaned at the exertion.

"Jesus..." Fox whispered. "Can you extinguish the engine fires?" she asked the technician near her.

She threw her fingers wildly across the control board, feeling the Fortress tilt uncomfortably. "Initiating fire suppression protocols...but I don't know if it'll do any good! They'll need time to restart, if they're not irreparably damaged!"

Fox watched as the ocean crept closer. "We don't have time. Can the starboard engines compensate?"

"Trying..." the head pilot grimaced, he and his co-pilot trying to herd the big ship from its chosen path.

"Dingo, Matrix," she barked at them, "get out there and see if you can distract that damned thing! Robyn, man the guns."

Xanatos leaned over and kissed his wife on the cheek, feeling the warmth returning to her skin. "Two targets are better than one."

"Try not to get killed, David."

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

The phoenix came around again, sensing the damage wrought. The big airship was already slowing down and descending quickly. But three of its engines were still functioning properly. It needed to rectify that.

It swooped in close, intent on destroying as many moving parts as possible. But out of nowhere a laser blast skimmed off its fiery hide. It turned its head towards the insect in gleaming silver armor daring to take potshots at it. It swerved and screamed at Dingo and the former mercenary was suddenly questioning a few of his life choices, but love and money were good motivators.

He played chicken and swerved at the last moment, Matrix forced to go along for the ride with a rather irrational biological being. The phoenix screamed past and the wind shear almost sent Dingo into a tumble. Matrix formed wings to brake mid-air and helped steer his partner into a sharp turn.

"...Heads up, Harry..." Robyn's voice echoed through his helmet. He looked down and noticed the big rounded turret on the airship's roof tremble and rotate, the barrels extending.

"Heads up, Xanatos." he warned the other flying, armored human risking his life. "I think my girl's got a new toy."

Xanatos nodded and started veering off. "Noted."

Robyn was in the gunner's chair, suspended just underneath the dual cannons and turning in sync. With several screens giving her a full field of view, she gripped the control sticks and pulled the triggers. The feedback was immediate. The cannons started firing energy pulses in rapid succession, filling the air with laser fire and the phoenix had to maneuver out of the way before being perforated.

Dingo stopped short and rose up before he wandered into the turret's range of fire, his girl being generous with the energy expenditure. "Bloody hell, Rob!"

"...Move, Monmouth! Be a distraction, not a target!..."

As Dingo grimaced, muttered something under his breath and flew off, Matrix slithered its head out from the armor and kept an eye on the turret as Dingo took potshots at the phoenix, trying to divide its attention. He spiraled up and over and fired near the phoenix's head; maybe if the big, fiery bird had eyes he could blind it.

The phoenix barely minded the gleaming liquid metal insect as it peppered him with ineffective fire and banked away, towards the wounded airship.

"It's coming in, Rob!"

Robyn swung her chair around and fired a line hoping to cut the phoenix in half; it impacted, the phoenix took it in the belly and it angled away. It screeched and Robyn heard it through the steel bulkheads; it was either a scream of pain or a scream of frustration. She'd either wounded it or made it angry. Keeping the triggers held down Robyn didn't let up; if she saw a glimpse of green she fired at it, despite the targeting scanners doing their best to track the phoenix for her.

The phoenix wasn't able to get close lest it risk a shot from the airship. Whoever was behind the controls was a good shot and incredibly practiced, firing where the phoenix was going to be and the creature had to dodge accordingly, unable to get near the starboard engines.

Dingo came around the side and kept aiming at the phoenix's eyes and head and the phoenix flew off, getting some distance. Dingo and Xanatos chased after it, hoping to give the crew a chance to right the airship and get some distance. But reaching a certain distance the phoenix suddenly shot upwards into a bank of low-hanging clouds. They followed knowing they were both flying blind; all they could see were splashes of emerald reflecting on the cloud cover, obscuring the phoenix and whatever direction it was going. "Shit, Rob," Dingo said, "I don't know where it is."

"It's playing with us." Xanatos muttered.

Robyn had the turret pointed upwards, knowing the phoenix was above them playing with her lover and his partner. The cannons were silent but still trained on the sky; she didn't want to pick Harry off with an errant shot (but she wouldn't mind if she winged the billionaire). It was quiet in her little chamber, separated from the rest of the airship and her index fingers were twitching, hovering above the triggers. Robyn licked her lips and waited, seeing that familiar trace of emerald dart back and forth in the cloudbank. "Harry...give me something, where is it...?"

"Can't see it..." he replied. "Matrix?"

Matrix's head scanned the area around them like a periscope. "Thermal readings are scattered. It is heating the air around us, most likely in an attempt to confuse us."

And that feeling of dread stuck in his gullet. Both Xanatos and Dingo realized quickly. "Damnit, Rob, it's coming!" Dingo shouted.

Robyn's eyes trained on the monitors, they widened as the phoenix shot out from the cloud cover, plummeting straight towards the airship. It tucked his wings in and coiled into a sleeker shape, tearing through the sky like a green flaming missile. It started spinning and drilled through the air, its sleeker profile making it hard to hit. Its flight path went erratic, bobbing and weaving and Robyn had trouble keeping track. All she could do was try to think faster than an ancient firebird.

It looped around the airship's rear end and disguising itself in the smoke from the portside engines, hidden from Robyn's all-seeing targeting sight.

"Where are ye, ye beast...?" Robyn hissed, fingers hovering over the triggers. "Harry, I can't find it..."

"...It's coming around, Rob!..." Dingo yelled through his commlink and his weapon-fire could be heard in the background. He and Xanatos had followed the phoenix straight down and were trying their best to keep it at bay. It was getting dangerously close to the remaining engines.

Robyn yanked the control sticks to the left and the chair spun around. She opened fire and chased the phoenix across the sky but even the turret couldn't keep up with her target's blinding speed.

It turned, spun, dodged and to Robyn's horror, sliced cleanly through the starboard engines before she could even blink.

"Damn!" Robyn spat and her gunner's seat lurched with the ship, almost throwing her to the floor. If it weren't for the harness locking her in she might've rolled across the steel grating.

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

The ship jerked and quivered like the cart on a roller coaster. Alarms were screaming. Port engines were on fire, starboard engines were completely wrecked and Fortress Four was dropping like a rock. The descent towards the water increased tenfold.

Her ship was without wings. "Everyone to the lifeboats, now!" Fox screamed, pointing to the back of the bridge. All except the pilots immediately jumped from their seats and ran towards the airship's lifeboats, with Ambrosias grabbing the severed arm and slipping away in the chaos. She turned and watched as the two pilots struggled at the controls. "That means you two as well!"

"No, ma'am."

Fox rolled her chair up to the controls. "Give me control."

The lead pilot looked helplessly from his yoke to his employer and captain. "Ma'am..."

She nodded at his resistance, and said firmly but quietly, "Now, Mr. Williams. It's my turn to drive."

He stared at her for a moment and despite the withered shell, her green eyes burned brightly and resolutely.

"I'll put her down one way or another." Fox continued, a little too calmly considering the Fortress was nose-diving. "This ship was one of my father's last projects. I'll see it to its end."

He reluctantly gave up the controls and sat up. "Thank you, Mrs. Xanatos."

Her wheelchair rolled into position and Fox grabbed the control yoke. "Get going you two."

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

Hatches started opening on either side of the airship, panels so tightly fitted against the fuselage the seams were almost invisible. Small, covered tubs with a vaguely boat-like keel shot out and dove into the water, their buoyancy quickly lifting them to bob on the surface. Each assigned pilot started up the small engines and the lifeboats scattered in all directions, hoping to avoid the incoming airship and the phoenix circling its kill.

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

"...You too, Canmore..."

"I've still got power to the turrets and I'm going to use them!" Robyn stubbornly argued against the voice coming through her commlink.

"...It's too late. This boat is about to take a bath..."

She pressed her lips together and kept both hands on the triggers, throwing out as much energy from the cannons as possible and hoping to blow a hole in the phoenix. "Come on, ye blasted demon..."

"...That's an order from your director, Robyn. You and I both know all the firepower in the world isn't going to help us now..."

She screamed through the last shot and threw her hands down. Robyn unbuckled herself from the turret control chair and hopped down to the steel plating, noticing just how much of a tilt the airship had. She quickly tore through the corridors until she reached the nearest exterior hatch and wrenched it open; almost blown out from the pressure change she braced against the doorframe and noticed the engines on her side were flaming pyres belching black smoke. Then she looked down at the expanse of ocean. She figured they were still a few hundred feet up and if she hit the water at just the right angle, she could minimize the damage to herself. Maybe a couple bone fractures, a partially collapsed lung, she could survive it. "Harry," Robyn said into her communicator, "I could use a lift."

"...A little busy here, Rob!..." Dingo said back, the sound of fire and fury in the background.

She nodded. "I understand, but it's either one of yuir patented last-minute rescues or I'm going t' hit th' ocean at a considerably fast speed."

"...What?..."

"I'm still on board the Fortress." Robyn admitted.

"...You're what?!..."

She crept to the threshold and braced herself with both hands on the sides. "Now or never, Harry!" She pushed herself free and into the wind, immediately feeling gravity grab hold and wrench her down faster than she would've liked. She spread eagled, hoping to put up some wind resistance but those waves were coming up fast. "I'm about thirty seconds away from hitting the water!"

Some muttering and a few choice Australian swear words through her commlink meant Harry had begrudgingly decided to come to her rescue but she didn't know exactly how far away he was. Robyn stared down at the water and readied herself for impact.

The sound of a rocket engine rose over the roaring wind and several liquid metal tendrils wrapped around her waist and legs. She was pulled into the warm metal embrace of Dingo's armor, smothered by Matrix. "Got you!"

She wrapped her arms around his neck and, surprisingly, smiled at him and his last minute rescue. "Thanks, honey."

"You are welcome." Matrix answered.

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

Xanatos noticed the lifeboats roaring away to safety and hoped his wife had left in one of them. "Fox?!" he shouted into his communicator.

"...Little busy, David..." she chirped back.

"Where are you?!"

"...On the command deck. Trying to land this beast right side up..."

"Damnit..." he muttered and shot towards the Fortress. He could see small breaking rockets firing from their nozzles on the bow and sides of the airship, Fox trying to control the descent without most of the big turbines. It was listing to one side and going in on an angle and he knew if it hit the water like this it would slice into the blue, frothing surface like a knife and either sink or capsize. If she could level it out she might be able to skim across the ocean and use the keel to put her down safely.

He flew alongside until reaching one of the exterior doors and slipped inside.

"Fox!" She didn't answer; she was using everything she had to try and control the airship. Little trails of perspiration were slipping from beneath her bandanna. He came up behind and put his steel-gloved hands on the yoke above her own. "I'm here."

"We need to level it off," she said through gritted teeth, "or–"

"I know." he said, imagining the impact at such a skewed angle. "We're still tilting to port. Angle the breaking rockets back! Another twenty degrees, you're fighting our momentum and we could stall!"

"I am a licensed pilot, David!"

"Trust me..." he smiled at her but Fox was far too engaged to argue further. She implemented his suggestions and felt the big ship tilt up; she knew her husband was smirking behind her. The Fortress leveled off just before hitting the water and planed into the surface. The bow was angled just enough to keep from digging in and Fortress Four made a soft landing, managing to stay afloat as all the energy behind its descent transferred to the water.

Fox's hands relaxed around the control yoke, and she released a breath.

"Any landing you can swim away from..."

"Don't quip yet, David," she admonished, "we're still on fire and floating on the ocean. That is, floating until this barge decides to sink. I'm activating the flotation devices." She flipped a few switches. Panels blew from the hull near the waterline and yellow floats inflated around the entire airship. "Hopefully that'll keep us from hitting the bottom."

"How are the engines?" he asked from behind. "Can we take off again?"

She started assessing the damage and grimaced at the readout. "Starboard engines are wrecked, port took fire damage." She turned and shrugged. "If you've got a paddle, we can row back to Manhattan."

Xanatos rubbed the short hairs in his goatee, scanning the amount of alarms and damage displays the ship was sending back. "So this is how it ends..." he said quietly. "I always thought it was going to be a blaze of glory."

Her wheelchair rotated and Fox leaned back into the padded seat. "Still a chance." she offered. "We could detonate the power core. It would obliterate us and maybe the stones. Plan B remember?"

He gave her a hard sideline glance but knew she was being practical. She'd already tried jumping off the castle when faced with the reality of her sickness and maybe being vaporized in a nuclear explosion would look great in the society pages. "We can't be sure of that. They've been in the ocean for centuries and haven't eroded a bit." He paused before continuing. "And we could incinerate our son."

Fox's jaw set at the mention of Alexander. "He's immortal now and part of the phoenix. He'd survive."

"A small nuclear explosion at close range?"

"What's the alternative?"

He lowered his head in thought, but didn't offer a rebuttal.

"We've been running since Avalon. We've literally run through time and my new toy is floating on the Atlantic." Fox hit the button for the communication link. "This is Fox to the assets. Get as far away from the Fortress as possible. There's...going to be some fireworks."

There was silence for a moment before Robyn responded, having realized what their employer had up her sleeve, "...Ye canna be serious..."

But Fox was already punching in her security codes, accessing the power core. "Start going now, Canmore, as fast as Dingo's armor can take you."

"...What about you?..."

"David will give me a ride."

"...Nuclear shockwaves can exceed the speed of sound..."

"He'll fly very fast."

"...Fox..."

"Just go." she urged the stubborn Scottish woman, using her thumb to slide the power level on her touch screen to maximum.

"...No, Fox, the phoenix!..."

The ship suddenly heaved and listed on its inflatable buoys; something hit the roof. A small bright spot appeared in the metal, the tangerine glow growing larger as the roof was superheated and eventually a hole was melted clean through. The phoenix dropped into the bridge; it screamed and swatted at the humans with a wing. A wave of scorching air blew Fox and David back, Fox's wheelchair nearly upending. YOU WILL NOT DESTROY THIS VESSEL.

Getting to his feet, Xanatos quickly went to his wife.

DO NOT INTERFERE.

"I'm going to interfere as much as humanly possible!" he barked at the massive green bird. "You've swallowed my son and you're going to help that psychotic gain the power he seeks!"

YES.

He made the clan proud with a toothy snarl sent the phoenix's way but kept close to Fox, trying to douse the fire he felt welling in the pit of his stomach. It would make him sloppy. "And then what? You get your sanctuary and you let Sobek raze the human world?"

The phoenix didn't answer; it just tilted its massive, spear-shaped head down at the insects. Its green fire-feathers seemed to bristle at the human's tone. I HAVE BEEN PREY FOR MUCH OF MY MANY LIVES. NO LONGER. IF ALLOWING GENOCIDE GRANTS ME PEACE AT LONG LAST THEN SO BE IT.

"You are a despicable creature."

WE ARE THE SAME, INSECT AND KING. WE USE MANIPULATION TO ACHIEVE OUR GOALS AND LESSER BEINGS TO HELP US DO SO. The phoenix opened its wings and a hulking figure emerged from its belly, every inch of it aflame in the same green fire. The bony plates were black, writhing shadows in the fire and Sobek stomped towards the billionaires.

Something creased through Fox's brows, seeing the gargoyle granted the ability to be awake by daylight. "Okay..."

Sobek opened his bony jaw and fire spilled out from his throat. "Xanatos. Stop delaying the inevitable."

"Sobek, I am the inevitable." Xanatos shot back, every word soaked in venom. "I've burned bigger threats than you alive."

And the gargoyle currently awash in magical green flame wasn't lost on the irony. "And yet here we are, on the threshold of everything I've sacrificed for. Do you know where we are?"

"The Atlantic."

He snorted flame and smoke from his nostrils, his wings snapping open. "We are over where Atlantis sunk, you fool. This is not coincidence, it is kismet. The stones led you here, the stones want to return home. And thousands of my brothers and sisters call out to be restored."

His brow furrowed with deep lines. "What...?" Xanatos breathed.

"I had a feeling..." Ambrosias said to himself, a little too loudly to be inconspicuous. He'd appeared out of nowhere, apparently having chosen to stay rather than abandoning the ship with the rest of the crew. Fox shot him a dirty look and he held his hands up in supplication; she could've used his help when the ship was nosediving towards the ocean.

"Give me the pretender, human!" Sobek suddenly snarled at Xanatos, breaking the human's line of thought. Awash in flame he was even more intimidating.

Xanatos straightened and casually crossed his arms behind his back. "I don't know what you're talking about."

Even with his face on fire Sobek's sneer carved deep. "Don't toy with me, human..."

YOU HAVE ONE CHOICE. The phoenix cut through the banter, infinite patience wearing thin. The foremost feathers on its wing curled and twisted and formed a lance. CHOOSE WISELY.

"Or what, you'll kill us?" Xanatos challenged.

The lance quickly extended, shot out and pierced Ambrosias through the chest. The sound of human flesh, bone and organs being violently ripped apart was louder than anyone expected. As Fox and Xanatos looked on in horror, Ambrosias seemed only slightly miffed. The man wasn't stunned or scared or horrified, just relieved. "Finally." he choked, a thin line of blood appearing at the corner of his mouth. "If only Goliath did this when he first attacked me, we could've saved a lot of grief..."

The phoenix pulled the barb from the human and he collapsed, dead before hitting the floor. It then turned and the tip of that lance was held inches from Fox's throat. It then repeated, CHOOSE. WISELY.

He shuddered; Xanatos knew that hot barb of fire would pierce her throat like butter and the creature attached to it had fought gargoyle, Fay and machine to achieve what it sought. There was no subtlety in its threat; it would kill her like stepping on an insect, just as it did the strange man from the future.

Apparently he'd taken too long to mull his decision when the flaming spear extended and caught Fox in the throat. All it had to do was press against the tender flesh and Fox clenched her teeth on her scream.

"Enough!"

The phoenix pulled its wing back and Fox clutched the reddening burn mark on her neck, fighting back tears of pain as a ghostly wisp of smoke slipped between her fingers.

"Enough..." Xanatos echoed in defeat, stepping forward to put Fox behind him. His stance was defiant but reticent; he was holding himself back. The smell of burning flesh hit his nostrils and he swallowed the knot in his throat. "I'll make you a deal. Release my son and I'll hand her over willingly."

"You're not in any position to barter, human!" Sobek growled.

But Xanatos simply strode past him, focusing on the phoenix. "You give me my son and none of us will interfere. You have my word."

The phoenix regarded him for the first time as something more than an insect. Perhaps it was impressed by the human's attempt to negotiate without any leverage. YOUR POSITION IS WEAK. THE GUARDIAN OR YOUR LIVES.

"You've won. There's no threat to you anymore. You have the stones and you'll have Infiniti. You don't need Alexander anymore."

THE CHILD IS MINE. AND YOU ARE NOTHING. With a single swipe of its wing, the humans ducked from a wave of fire, Xanatos throwing himself over his wife. The world exploded into heat and pain and turned on its side; they were across the bridge within seconds, left in a rumpled heap. Fox was thrown from her chair and left to nurse a head wound from hitting the steel floor, her clothing singed. Though damaged and missing a few chunks David's armor had spared him the brunt of the attack.

He struggled to get up and whatever his intent it was suddenly halted by a slight, pale hand on his shoulder. He turned and found the Cheshire grin of Puck behind him. His eyes nearly came loose from his skull.

"Don't fight it, David." the trickster whispered in his ear. "Unless you wish to see your lovely wife impaled through the throat. You try to dance with the phoenix and you'll end up charbroiled."

"You're asking me to allow them–"

Puck raised his hand and Xanatos felt his voice wrench from his mouth, stolen either by magic or his interruption. "Yes." he said resolutely. "Doing otherwise will cost you so much more than you could ever imagine."

"It's already cost me my son."

"Are you sure?" the Puck teased. "Let the island rise. Let the circle complete. The world will be better for it."

All he could hear was the sound of the blood racing through his arteries, pounding in his ears. He regarded the little faerie and, of course annoyed by the cryptic riddles, he'd always trusted Owen's counsel. But the Puck was Owen's dark shadow and sometimes there was a mean-streak tingeing his guidance if not a little bit of pageantry.

THE GUARDIAN. The phoenix roared, its voice thunder in his mind. NOW.

Xanatos then realized no one could see Puck but him, the Fay having cloaked himself in a curtain of magic. He turned his eyes to Fox, who struggled to get up while blood trickled around her eyebrow and traced the swell of her face, dripping to the steel floor.

The phoenix loomed closer. NOW.

"Mother." he called and somewhere a disembodied voice answered.

"Yes, Mr. Xanatos?"

"Bring Infiniti here."

"Are you sure?"

"It's either that or we become atoms drifting on the breeze."

There was a pause and Xanatos figured his AI was mulling her choice, despite her programming to obey his every command. Suddenly a part of the far bulkhead melted and reformed into Mother's physical avatar, holding Infiniti in her arms.

Sobek frantically growled, the fire that coated him spiking with his heightened emotional state, "Give her to me!"

Mother simply rotated at the waist towards Sobek, her head turning towards her creator, her expression muted. Gathering Fox into his arms, Xanatos just nodded. Sobek stomped his way to the nanite gargoyle and extended a single burning hand. His jaw distended grotesquely with his scream; he was so close. "NOW!"

She offered the unconscious gargoyle and Sobek took her into her arms, looking at her ravenously. "The stones..." he hissed.

The phoenix raised its wings and the airship shuddered on the water. The sound of groaning metal followed as the stones were wrenched from the cargo bay and forced through the steel bulkheads until settled on the roof of the airship. They landed in a perfect circle, equidistant from each other down to the millimeter. With aid from the phoenix, Sobek was lifted up and positioned himself in the middle with Infiniti in his hand. He lifted the limp female into the air and shook her, trying to break the stupor. "Open your eyes, pretender!" he snarled at her and Infiniti managed to crack her eyes, blinking back the sun. "I want you awake to witness this." He held up a large dagger and the polished steel glinted in the sunlight before he lowered it and centered the tip near her abdomen. Without pause or pomp, he drove the blade right through her, piercing her gut. Her eyes widened to circles, her jaw swinging free from the rest of her skull. She gurgled. "You are the key. Your blood will be our salvation."

Her wound started bleeding, pouring out of her, down her stomach and legs and pooling underneath her. Sobek held her up like a marionette with the strings cut, hoping to bleed her dry. The slick red puddle grew larger and larger until the blood pool suddenly pulled apart, splitting in different directions, seven trails each leading to a stone. The tendrils climbed the stones and infused into the carved inscriptions, painting them red. Sobek watched with wicked glee and a massive toothy grin as every carving in that ancient language filled with blood. "It begins..." he whispered to Infiniti, barely conscious from the loss of blood. "A new world..."

The stones lit up, infused with Atlantean DNA, glowing softly and humming, like someone had plucked a violin string. The glow intensified and suddenly sent a pillar of energy into the air, blowing away any clouds in the sky in a perfectly concentric circle.

Sobek's beady eyes were wild, two black points in green fire. He could feel the convergence of magic; so primitive and so raw; eleven thousand years being undone by blood and sacrifice.

It started with a few bubbles on the surface and then, like the water started boiling, a churning mass that spread out for miles in all directions.

Somewhere far below where sunlight couldn't penetrate a tectonic shift broke stone from stone and the entire ocean floor trembled through an undersea earthquake. It released air in streams of bubbles that shot to the surface and the sharp sound of cracking granite echoed through the water.

Inside the airship proximity alarms were sounding, and the radar screen had completely filled with a massive red blob of something just underneath them. "Jesus Christ..." Fox whispered.

The first object to break the surface did so without contrition, creating a white froth and a hump from the surface tension before breaking through and revealing itself. First one and then another. Spires of delicately carved stone rose all around the airship, seeing the sun for the first time in centuries; as they climbed into the air they seemed to pull more structures with them, buildings, statues, archways, all caked in ten millennia of coral and sea-life. An entire city was rising around Fortress Four, drawn by the stones.

The airship shuddered as something hit the hull from underneath and the couple realized the Fortress had come aground.

As Dingo, Matrix and Hunter circled above, they could see the buildings expand into a city and quickly expand into an island. An entire landmass was displacing millions of gallons of water within minutes, the ocean being divided so quickly and so much energy being expended it was causing tidal waves to ripple outward. Great waterfalls poured from rocky cliffs as they ascended, revealing mountain ranges and rolling hills filled with fields of kelp and sea-ferns, more towns outside of the main city connected with a labyrinth of roads and trails, spreading with no end. The island was a small continent, nearly the same size as Japan's main island and hundreds of thousands of miles of virgin earth revealed to the light.

After more than ten centuries a lost island had returned to the surface.

Atlantis had risen.