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.
