Chapter II
Disclaimer: I do not own The Gargoyles, The TMNT or any characters there in. Nor do I own anyone's opinions or takes on these characters. This is simply my view on certain characters, and any semblance to other fanfics is completely unintentional.
Note: Forever Aloneis the third fic in my gargoyles/TMNT series which will soon split into a co-authored fic world (run in fear!). This happens 5/97, after 'The Logic of Dreams' and 'Alone'. This fic will be going up slowly, as I managed to loose my original draft of this fic and have to re-write it and still make sure I stay true to my 'timeline'.
Please also note that I am writing the Wyvern clan and their allies slightly out of character on purpose, it's vital for the next saga of this series. Also, I LOVE April and Donatello, but find them both almost impossible to write, hence their low level of appearances. And I apologize to all Angela fans! I actually do like Angela, I just can't write her. It ended up feeling very forced, which was a pity, given Angela's full potential, which was rarely tapped:S And yes, I know that Brooklyn would not call them bola, however, that weapon concept did exist, even in Scotland, I just don't know the proper Scottish name:S
For more info, read the Author's Notes at the end of each chapter, I often hide important tidbits in there;)
Leo yawned and started to stretch, then quickly checked the motion as he felt the pain edging along his consciousness, waiting to lash out and blind him. He opened his eyes and looked around. His eyes finally alighting on Donatello, who sat next to him, typing away at his laptop.
"Hey, Donny," the blue-masked turtle rasped.
"Hey, Leo," Don offered, looking up from his computer. "How are you feeling? Get enough sleep?"
Leo chuckled slightly. "Yeah. How long this time?"
"Only a few hours this time, actually. You slept through Mikey's shift, on a side note."
"...Is that even possible?"
"First time for everything."
Leo chuckled again and looked at the laptop. "What are you working on?"
Don smiled, glad to finally have someone actually interested in his work. "Two things, actually. I'm trying to compile some data on gargoyles... did Raph tell you about Brooklyn? Yeah? Cool. Besides that, I'm checking into what the Purple Dragons and Foot have been up to, since they've increased their numbers and 'jobs' recently."
Leonardo shifted his weight and assumed an attentive and curious expression. Donatello needed no further prompting, and, after a moments debate, he decided to talk about the Purple Dragons and Foot first.
"Well, I've been going through all the data we've gotten over time and, adding in whatever I've managed to find via the internet and our friends on the street. It seems that the news is actually right. The Dragons are behind the 'Silent Crime Wave'."
"...The what?"
"Silent Crime Wave."
"...Who named it that?"
"News reporters. Anyway, it looks like there's a new element, or leader, in the Dragons. Someone that's pushing for more new recruits, better training and more 'stealthy' operations. Near as I can tell, the number of Purple Dragons new recruits being taken in have tripled, maybe even quadrupled."
Leo's eyes widened and he felt his body tense at THAT bit of information. "What? But we haven't seen that many on the street!"
"I know, that's the weird part. Several of the Dragons keep disappearing from the gang. It's like they suddenly ceased to exist."
"That's worrying."
"Yeah. Even more so since both the Foot and the Dragons seem to be getting better at fighting and basic tactics. Plus, there are more Foot solders out there as well."
Leonardo frowned. "Looks like New York just got a lot more dangerous..."
Who would have thought that lessons learned about tenth century weapons could still be so useful?
Brooklyn worked quickly, scoring the stones he'd found with his talons, then tying the lengths of rope from the net onto them, pulling the knots tight. Every so often he stopped and found three of the rock-ended ropes together, making rather makeshift bola out of them.
Once he was out of suitably sized rocks, Brooklyn gathered the rest of the rope up and wound it up into a small bundle, which he then tucked into his belt.
Grabbing up his bola, Brooklyn again took to the trees, glad, not for the first time, that humans had no instinct to look up.
Time to make the hunters the hunted.
"Well, I must admit, Mr. Ammon, that your resume is impressive, as are your references."
The dark human smiled, looking heart-breaking perfect, like a sculpture of a god come to life. "Thank you, Mr. Burnett. It's nice to know that my past is serving me in good stead."
Owen Burnett simply tapped the papers he was holding into a neat stack, then calmly got to his feet and offered a hand to Adam Ammon. "Welcome to Mr. Xanatos' home guard, Mr. Ammon. I'll show you around the area you'll be patrolling, then I'll take you to meet Mr. Xanatos."
"I'd like that very much, thank you."
The two humans walked through the door, the lights shutting off behind them. For a moments, all was silent, then the slim form of a female gargoyle detached herself from the shadows outside the window.
Angela put a hand on the glass, staring sadly into the room. For a few moments, she remained still, then she slowly sank to her knees, a single tear tracking it's way down her face as her hand slid down the glass. "So simple, for him. Just show up, and he is accepted. Things were that simple on Avalon, but here... I can't just walk down the street, or try to get a job... I have to hide from the humans, as if I were ashamed of who and what I am..."
"That's not why," a new voice offered, and Broadway glided over to land on the window ledge beside Angela, worry creasing his face as he traced the trails the tears had left. "Are you alright?"
Angela pulled herself into Broadway's arms, the occasional tear still sliding down her face. "No. ...I'm tired of hiding and not being accepted. I was raised by humans, I'm sure everything will work out, so why won't father..."
"Because it isn't just Goliath's choice, Angela. The whole clan has to agree on it and... Brooklyn is really adamant about not revealing ourselves yet, and his arguments about humans not really being ready make sense..." Broadway paused and glanced towards the moon, the light almost seeming to reflect green in his eyes for a moment. "Or they do when we hear them, so it always ends deadlocked, everyone angry. Just like him to cause that sort of thing, then just go out patrolling."
"Humans just don't understand yet, that's all, but they'll accept us once we reveal ourselves, I know they will..."
Broadway sighed and caped his wings around Angela, memories of life at Wyvern when he had been young coming to his mind. "I'm not so sure about that, my love."
Angela remained still, hugging Broadway for a few moments, then she pushed away slightly and looked up at Broadway. "Where's Brooklyn? I want to talk to him. Maybe I can convince him."
"He took off as soon as the sunset, said he'd patrol Central Park tonight."
"Central Park? Alone? There's no way anyone could manage that on a solo patrol, he can't have gone there."
"But why would he lie about that?"
"I don't know... maybe he just wanted time alone?"
Broadway frowned, eyes reflecting the moonlight again. "He's been alone a lot lately. And he's been acting distracted. And Brook's only distracted when he's up to something."
"Up to something?"
Broadway shrugged. "Like when he was helping us build the bike, or when he though Demona was telling the truth and tricked Goliath, he was really distracted, like his mind was a million miles ahead of him and he was trying to catch up to it."
"Well. Then it looks like when Brooklyn returns we'll have to find out in which direction his mind has run, and what he's been up to lately."
"Kicking bad guy butt," Brooklyn muttered. "Always a fun sport." The terracotta colored gargoyle had used five of his eight makeshift bola thus far, and he had taken out an equal number of the blue-garbed humans. Spotting one of the searchers, Brooklyn froze, despite being halfway up a rather tall pine tree. After carefully craning his neck and head about to search for any other of his attackers, Brooklyn began whirling one of the remaining bola above his head, waiting for that one moment to strike.
THERE!
Brooklyn released the bola, smiling as it caught the human around the chest, pinning his arms to his sides and, as one of the stones hit his chest, snapped at least one of his ribs. Brooklyn leapt down from his perch in the pine tree and landed next to the Quarryman as the masked human fell to the ground.
"Nighty-night," Brooklyn snarled as he slammed his fist into the wheezing human's face, insuring that this human, at least, would not cause him any further grief.
The next instant, Brooklyn's world vanished into a white haze of agony as a laser tore through the delicate wing membrane. He threw back his head and screamed in agony, almost falling to his knees as his left hand shot towards, but stopped shy of, his injury. Dropping forward to rest his weight evenly between his arms and legs in a way he had not done in at least a year, the brown-red gargoyle looked over his shoulder with eyes blazing blue-white to see who had fired on him. He was barely able to dodge the next shot, which hit where he had been a moment before. Growling deep in his throat, Brooklyn dropped to all fours and quickly dove through the trees, ducking slightly to present a smaller target as another laser shot took a chunk out of the tree next to him.
'Right. Time to modify the plan.'
Brooklyn heard the human blundering after him and he felt a grin parting his beak. Putting on a bit more speed, he shot ahead and dove beneath a juniper bush thick enough to hide him. Ignoring the way the prickly bush dug and stabbed at him, Brooklyn froze, thanking whoever watched out for foolish gargoyles for the wind that continued to shake the plants around him and cover his hasty entrance into the bush. A few heartbeats later, the human blundered past him, the lack of artificial illumination combined with a humans 'night vision' allowing him to charge past his quarry's hiding place with out even suspecting that he was now chasing shadows.
Brooklyn waited for a moment, then carefully extracted himself from the bush as silently as he could, then stalked after the human as said blue-garbed being stumbled to a halt, trying to relocate his quarry. With a snarl that would make a tiger proud, Brooklyn leapt forward and tackled the human, slamming his foes head into the ground, then he leapt forward again, wings held close to his body.
He paused as he found two unconscious, blue-garbed humans, both bound and gagged, lying before him. Brooklyn blinked. He hadn't been here yet, so what...
Ah.
The mysterious note writer. He... or perhaps she... must have seen these humans attack him and had decided to help.
As Brooklyn took off running again, hearing the sounds of more humans ahead, he reflected that it was a good thing he was getting this unexpected help.
He was going to need it.
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Author's Notes:
Okay, I hope I haven't confused anyone TOO badly. This stuff will actually be mentioned in the stories as it goes on, but I'm keeping this here so people can get a quick summery of the history in 'my' realm. The year is currently 1997. The Goliath Chronicles did NOT occur here. The gargoyles portion of this fic-series goes off on a parallel course after Hunter's Moon. The Quarrymendo exist, as does the P. I.T. crew, however, most of the human populace think the gargoyles were just an elaborate hoax, someone creating robots again in the shape of monsters. The remainder of the public is torn between hating and loving the gargoyles... and just wanting them to go away. Jason Canmore has joined the CSI. He's still in a wheelchair, but he's enjoying the desk job (more or less) he has in the laboratory and is slowly proving himself to be a trustworthy. Robyn Canmore has been given parole and is job hunting and Jon is still MIA (actually, he's in charge of the Quarry men under the assumed name John Castaway).
For those of you that came in late; Demona is telling the truth, both about the dream, her past and her intentions. Or at least, recalling Demona's past via the few episodes of it that we've seen, she's telling the truth;) I never saw City of Stone, but I've found several reviews of it, as well as a 'play by play' on the gargoyles-fans site, so I hope 'm accurate! Also, yes, the clan is acting a bit odd towards Brooklyn, but I did that on purpose;). Pay close attention to how the clan, Fox, David, Owen, Elisa and the Mutates treat Brook... again, it's going to be vital in the Exile saga...
I'm using the new TMNT TV series for this crossover (primarily because it's following the comics, but I like the gadgets and tone of it a bit better then the comics... Never thought I'd say that) Since the show isn't over yet, I'm using what has occurred so far in the series and mixing it up with the comic book history, first and second movie and my own imagination. The new series seems to be taking place in 1995 (cell phones, DVDs, etc) The Purple Dragons are a bit more like the gang we see in the first NT movie. There's a silent crime wave going on as the Purple Dragons recruit teenagers and teach them the basics of breaking and entering, pick-pocketing, etc. The better fighters in the Purple Dragons are being taken in to be taught ninjitsu. Tatsu (yes, the grunting guy from the movie;) is in charge of training the foot, while Hun is in charge of their deployment. The Purple Dragons aren't aware of who they're working for, so even if the police break them up, there's no way of connecting the crimes to Oroko Saki, the respected business man.
No, the gargs and turtles aren't really aware of each other. In the comics and new series, most of the turtles actions are happening very quickly topside, inside buildings, or underground, while the 'Gargoyles' action occurs in hard to reach places, on top of secluded buildings, or in midair. The odds of the gargoyles or police realizing that there is a 'Foot' clan are somewhere between very low and flat out impossible.
In the year since Hunter's Moonand Logic of Dreams/Alone, Demona has gone seemingly MIA and has done nothing illegal or genocidish, so though Elisa, Matt and the others are watching Nightstone Inc, there's nothing for them to find. Leo and Raph have been getting a bit more aggressive towards each other, but it has yet to reach a head. Goliath is following the route he seemed to be taking in the Goliath Chronicles and is pushing for the clan to take on more human customs and let the public know about their presence. Meanwhile, also following his GC 'path' Brooklyn seems to be resisting the changes, and openly disagreeing with Goliath about revealing their presence. Or at least, that's my take on the circumstances;)
And yes, Splinter STILL kicks ass;)