Greetings, true believers! This is your loving author, speaking once again to all of you! Before I begin weaving this tale, I must state that all disclaimers apply; Gargoyles belongs to Disney, and Big O belongs to Sunrise. If they belonged to me, then you would have seen this crossover on TV a long time ago! Now that the legal stuff is over, I hope you all enjoy this story, and please give me plenty of reviews for my precious ego!

1 The Black Forest...

Elisa Maza yawned and brushed some of her dark hair back from her face. She had been getting less and less sleep lately. It was hard to keep normal hours, considering the type of company she was keeping. She had come to tolerate the bags under her eyes with a sort of resignation; it was worth it to see her friends. And besides, the night had come to hold a sort of spell over her that she embraced happily.
She sighed as she stared out over the steering wheel of her car. Normally, she was thankful for a night of peace, but for some reason tonight was different. Frankly, she was bored to death, and she grimaced at her radio, almost wanting something to come crackling over the waves. But, nothing came, and it seemed she was doomed to this curse of nothing to do for the night. Maybe she should call it quits early and pay a visit to her friends?
Just as this thought occurred to her, her radio crackled it. She chuckled, thinking someone had predicted what she was thinking. She picked up the receiver.
"Maza, you there?" came the voice of Matt Bluestone over the speaker.
"Yeah. What's up Matt?" "You're not far from Lexington Avenue, right?"
"Yeah. What's it to you?"
"Some woman in an apartment nearby reported hearing a scream. Probably just someone having a nightmare."
"One can always hope."
"Better check it out, just to be sure."
"Sure Matt. I'm on it."
As she drove, she looked up at the sky. The starlight night was beautiful. Frankly, tonight just seemed to peaceful for anything truly bad to happen. She smiled to herself. Once this was over, she would go see her friends. That would be a good way to top off a quiet night.
She stopped below the high rise apartment building. She stepped out of her car and looked up at it. The clouds rolled by overhead. She narrowed her eyes. Had she seen something scrambling around on the roof? She blinked and looked again. Probably just shadows. She shrugged and took a walk around the building. Everything seemed quite peaceful.
She got back into her car and picked up the receiver for her radio. She spoke into it with a sense of satisfaction. "There's nothing wrong out here Matt. Tell her that she should just close her windows from now on, keeps noise out."
The moment the words left her lips, the silence of the night was pierced like a knife cleaving into flesh as the window of an apartment three flours up exploded outward in a blast of fire and smoke. Elisa ducked down onto the floor of her car, waiting till she was sure the blast had not been aimed at her. She got back up in her seat. Matt was screaming over the radio.
"Elisa? Elisa! What the hell was that?"
"Some sort of an explosion Matt. Get a firetruck down here right away, before it sets the whole building up!" She hopped out of her car. She headed for the entrance to the building, intending to help evacuate its occupants, when a noise rose above the roar of the fire: laughter. It was a high pitched, maniacal cackling. Elisa's head swung around, searching for the source of the sound. It seemed to be coming from the roof. She hurried around the side of the building, leapt onto the fire escape, and squirmed up its metal latter's.

High above the lights of the city, soaring through the sky, was an ancient warrior of unspeakable means. The purple wings spread out against the air, carrying their owner along on currents of wind. He smiled contently to himself as he scanned over the streets of the city. All seemed very peaceful tonight. Perhaps he'd get to see Elisa soon.
His thoughts were interrupted by the roar of an explosion. He paused in mid-air, and scanned around till he saw the plume of smoke rising into the sky. He narrowed his eyes, grunted, and headed for the emergency.

Elisa Maza had seen much in the past few years that she had once considered impossible. Since her friends had come into her life, she had encountered a stream of robots, mutants, aliens, and fairies. She had come to expect the unexpected, and to be more fearless than she had ever thought possible. But she could not restrain her shock at the sight awaited her on the roof of the building.
The man who stood on the opposite ledge was the most bizarre looking person she had ever seen. His clothes looked formal and professional, in spite of how dirty they were. A tattered trench-coat billowed in the wind, joined by bandages, which lead to his mummified head. The bandages wrapped around his whole skull, leading up to a cone shaped point over his cranium. A pair of buggy, bloodshot eyes glared out at her crazily, staring from above the hideous grin that also seemed to jump out from the forest of bandages. His hands were also covered in bandages, topping off his strange appearance. He did not seem to notice her at first, but rather his attention was focused on the police and fire department cars that were screeching to a halt in front of the building. Elisa approached him carefully.
"Okay mister, just step down from there real slow..." she cautioned. She held up her badge for him to see, hoping that he would make this easy and just back down at the sight of her police credentials. But this was not to bed, and instead he seemed totally unimpressed. He burst into another round of horrible laughter, his eyes still watching the street's below.
"Even in this world, the people are nothing but pathetic lap dogs, whimpering at their master's heels." His voice was gravelly, rough, but still sent a chill down Elisa's spine. She held her gun steady and tried again to get through to him.
"Put your hands up where I can see them. Step down off that ledge..."
"But still, I could manage to do a great deal of good here..." he said, totally ignoring Elisa. He scratched his bandage chin and grinned. "A city that hasn't yet lost its memories; it would be so much easier to find the truth here."
"What are you talking about? Who are you?" she demanded, her confusion angering her. He now turned to face Elisa, focusing his insane eyes on her. He chuckled, seeming to be amused by the sight of her.
"Oh, I am called many things. But you may call me Schwarzwald."
"Huh?" Elisa struggled to identify the word, but it seemed to be some sort of foreign language. She thrust it aside and turned her attention back to the man standing before her. "Did you cause that explosion? And why are you dressed up in a Halloween costume?"
"This world intrigues me," he said, ignoring her questions. "Not since Big Duo have I seen something so interesting."
"What the hell are you talking about?" she demanded, stepping closer.
"Its not easy you know, seeking out the truth. I sought it for years, and this is what became of me. Such a pity the same thing doesn't happen to the likes of you." He reached into his pocket, and Elisa dropped into a combat ready stance, prepared to open fire if she had to. She relaxed when he produced nothing more than a cigarette lighter. He held it up for her to see. "But then again, perhaps I can help you to see the world in the same light I have..."
Elisa suddenly became aware of the smell of gasoline. Her eyes flicked around for the source, and finally settled at her own feet. She gasped when she saw the soaking bandages laying on the ground below her. Her eyes followed the long trail of white cloth up, up to the maniac's feet. His grin spread under his bandaged face, and he clicked the flint of the lighter, the small flame dancing up into the night air. Elisa tried to scream, but found she could not. She watched, horrified as he dropped the lighter...
It happened in an instant. The flames poured down the gasoline soaked bandages toward Elisa, but in a split second, just before the ignited the cloth right below her feet, she found herself torn from the roof of the building, yanked into the air. She cried out at first, till she looked up in the familiar eyes of Goliath.
"Thanks big guy" she said, giving a sigh of relief, "I was afraid I was going to end up a chicken McNugget for a minute."
"Who is that man?" Goliath asked her as he circled overhead. As they watched, he leapt off of the roof of the burning building onto another, jumping from building to building, attempting to escape as Goliath gave chase.
"He called himself Schwarzwald" Elisa said, struggling with the strange sounding word.
"The black forest?" Goliath said, one of his large eyebrows cocking questioningly.
"Huh?"
"Never-mind" Goliath said, remembering Elisa had not read as extensively as he had.
"He was babbling all these things about the truth, and a Big something or other. Its like he just dropped out of the sky."
"He won't get far." Goliath commented. Elisa followed her companion's gaze, and smiled to herself at the sight of Angela and Broadway swooping down from the sky. They crashed down onto they're feet on another roof, just as Schwarzwald leapt onto it. He screeched to a halt, kicking up clouds of dirt. Broadway and Angela both eyed him skeptically.
"Curioser and curioser..." Schwarzwald muttered as he slowly backed away from the two gargoyles. He spun around and attempted to leap back to the building he had just come from, but Goliath landed in front of him, cutting him off. Schwarswald's eyes flicked back and forth from gargoyle to gargoyle, desperately searching for a way out.
"Who is this guy, Goliath?" Broadway asked, taking measured steps closer to the strange looking mummy-man.
"Elisa said he calls himself..."
"I am a seeker of knowledge!" Schwarzwald interrupted, swinging his hand into the air in a grand gesture. "I am the one who has had the courage to try to find memories from 40 years ago! And now that I have a world where memories still exist, I shall be loathe to surrender it!" He reached into his coat, withdrew his balled up first, and swung it toward Angela and Broadway. They both yelped and jumped back, at the same moment Goliath and Elisa took a leap forward. They all hesitated, staring at each other taking a moment to register that he had in fact thrown nothing at them. His laughter interrupted, and they all spun just in time to see him leap from the edge of the building. "So gullible!" his cry echoed as he tumbled down toward the alley below.
They all hurried to leap down after him, but just as they reached the edge, the sound of a strange crackling arose to their ears. The darkness below was suddenly illuminated by cracks of electricity. Flashes burst in the air, reflecting the scrambling form of Schwarzwald in the alley below. A humming noise rose up, drowning out his panicked cries. The electricity grew into small lighting, and finally it all rose into a monumental burst of energy that threw all four of them onto their backs. They all blacked out for a moment...
Elisa groaned as she sat up. She shook the cobwebs out of her head as Goliath, Broadway, and Angela all rose as well. They quickly jumped down into the alley, and were all stunned by the sight of the smoldering pavement, the melted trash cans, the smoldering walls. It looked as if there had been a small nova here in this tiny crack of New York. And worse, Schwarzwald was nowhere to be seen.
"What was that, Elisa?" Angela asked, her level of concern obvious in her voice.
"I don't know Angela" Elisa answered, "But I have a bad feeling about it..."

A world away...

Alex Rosewater smiled to himself and leaned back in his chair. The massive machine before him still smoked a little as it slowly cooled down. Behind him, the wire-thin form of Alan Gabriel stood like a statue, his never ending smile plastered across his grotesquely inhuman face.
"Well, it seems that the test run was a perfect success, Alan" Rosewater said over his shoulder. "Feel prepared for a little journey?"
"A sojourn through another world" Alan responded, his voice laced with soft chuckles, "Sounds like fun." His chuckles rose into a hideous laughter that echoed through the huge underground complex.