Alone Chapter 1: The Fays.
(Date: May 2004. It's been 6 years since the show ended.)"And so the power of government was transferred to William and Mary peacefully," MacBeth finished up his lecture on the English struggle. "This was known as the Glorious Revolution because there was no shedding of blood, remember that, you will be tested on it." MacBeth, known by the students by his current legal name Mr. McDuff, was a entertaining teacher. To the juniors of this school in a suburb of New York City, MacBeth taught his European History Class as if he experienced it himself. "Now, we have a few minutes left of class, does anyone have any questions?"
Sarah raised her hand anxiously. "Mr. McDuff, Mr. McDuff!" She implored, "There's a question I've been wanting it ask: Are you a descendant of the McDuff?"
"I was wondering if anyone had any questions about English History..." MacBeth rolled his eyes with a chuckle, "Did Chelsea in second period tell you to ask?" He grinned in a teasing manner, "No, my mother changed her name from Agnes Schnachenpfifferhausen (name created by Sarah Grace Adams) to Janice McDuff during WWI to hide her German nationality." Snickers were heard over the class when the bell rang. "Remember to read up on Oliver Cromwell for tomorrow's quiz!"
He had no reason to hurry home that evening, so MacBeth corrected his papers in the quiet of the empty school. He looked up as he stepped out of the school, checking the sky as had become his habit. Find nothing, he decided to walk home instead of calling for one of his thugs to pick him up. He took the long way. He calmly walked past an anti-Gargoyle protest at the police station. His students may have seen him on TV supporting gargoyles, but other than that, he usually avoided gargoyle politics. He strode on by the Erie Building, looking up to see blasts of light and magic coming from hundreds of stories above, he paid little attention, it wasn't his business... anymore. He took a side trip though Central Park where he enjoyed the peace and from there went home. He relaxed in his bed but stared into the darkness for a long time before falling asleep.
MacBeth awoke, startled at the sound of his window being forced open, instinctively he grabbed his gun. "Who goes there!" He demanded, "Show yerself!"
A winged figure replied with an English accent, "Calm down, chap! Sir Arthur and I need yer help, as does the world!"
MacBeth sat up groggily. "And what has the world done for me!" MacBeth demanded.
"Come now, old boy" Griff begged, "You promised your loyalty to King Arthur, do it for him and myself at least."
MacBeth rubbed his eyes and than tiredly grabbed his guns and things, "What's going on?"
MacBeth and the Griffin-like gargoyle arrived at a battle of huge proportions. It was huge primarily because there was a great green woman taking up a few blocks of downtown Manhattan. Apparently, a fay, or magical child of the fairy king Oberon, appeared out of nowhere and started attacking the gargoyles who lived atop the tallest building in all of New York, the Erie Building, mansion of millionaire David Xanatos.
Goliath's gargoyle clan called out for any allies to help. They called out for the subway clan of mutants, the cold clan of cybernetic gargoyles and King Arthur and Griff. David Xanatos immediately called out his Iron Clan of Mechanical Gargoyles which he had built out of iron for the purpose of battling such magical creatures, for iron was their only weakness. His seven year old son, Alexander, used his magic, aided by his mentor Puck, as well.
The fay was known as Eris, or the Greek goddess of discord. She seemed unstoppable. She seemed uncaring to the lives of any who got in the way and so there were already civilian injuries. The hardest part was getting through her dark henchmen, made of pure magic, to get to her. The gargoyle allies had the iron to battle her, but the battle was not in their favor.
Soon after MacBeth arrived, he learned that Xanatos had lost most of his robots and two members of his goon squad were mortally wounded. Broadway, Brooklyn and Matt Bluestone had been severely injured and sadly Fionnuala (Puck's girlfriend) had been killed. The devastating battle had been going on all night, it was now after 4:00 AM.
One of Eris' henchman grabbed Lexington. MacBeth was coming to his aide but a blast from another henchman hit the whole group, taking out the first henchmen and then continued to focus his attack on Lexington and seemed to ignore MacBeth, who was throw aside in the blast. MacBeth hurried to free the young yellow-green gargoyle of his attacker. Lex then straightway rushed to save Liberty (his girlfriend) from fire. MacBeth noticed that event repeat itself, it seemed only Goliath's clan of gargoyles and Griff were being hit. However, Eris was taking out whoever stood in her way of the gargoyles.
After freeing Lexington of the Henchman, MacBeth went to aide Goliath, Elisa, Angela, Puck and Alexander.The others had given them a opening to take on Eris and stop her murdering, and maybe even find out her purpose.
MacBeth noticed that Elisa was nervous about approaching the magical deity. "Fear not, Detective." MacBeth assured her. "'Tis the Gargoyles they are after!"
With the vote of confidence she jumped out into the line of fire and starts shooting the iron bullets that Xanatos had given her. As they got closer, Puck and Alexander gave Goliath and Angela cover as they charged with iron chains and weapons. MacBeth and Elisa stayed behind as back up incase they failed. In the corner of MacBeth's eye he saw a familiar silhouette, staying out of the fight. He paid little attention to her because she didn't matter to him anymore.
Seeing Goliath and Angela just before they could attack her, Eris struck Angela, without a care for her life. Goliath became distracted out of concern for his daughter and raced to catch her. The silhouette screeches like a cat and raced out of her corner to save her daughter.
After she set her purple daughter down, the red-headed, blue gargoyle turned to Goliath, "Watch over our daughter," and without another word, she grabbed some iron weapons and screeched with rage of revenge toward Eris. Elisa and MacBeth jumped at the chance to help, King Arthur joined them.
"Wait!" King Arthur called to Demona, "We must work together!" knowing it best for Angela, she reluctantly came back to listen to the plan, eyes glowing red with anger. Anyone who tries to kill her kind, especially her daughter, was an enemy to her, even if they were her enemy's enemy. Demona, filled with rage toward Eris, didn't seem to notice that involved in the plan were Elisa and MacBeth, two of her most vowed enemies.
"You two," King Arthur pointed to Demona and MacBeth, who had been his enemies when he first met them on Avalon, "Distract her and drain as much energy as you can. Do you have any iron weapons for him, Detective," Elisa handed both Demona and MacBeth iron weapons. "We" Referring to him and Elisa, "will try to restrain her from behind."
"Are you sure it's a good idea to have them work together," Elisa asked King Arthur as they went around the roof of the building to where Eris' huge figure controlled her henchmen.
"They are immortal, I thought they were the perfect choice." responded King Arthur.
"Yeah, but they hate each other, they could kill each other over there, we need them."
"They know that. That we need them, that is. Honor and helping friends is more important to MacBeth than suicide and Demona is concerned for her daughter."
Sneaking forward, Demona and MacBeth started firing at Eris from behind a wall. Eris soon became bored with their game from behind a wall and started blasting other gargoyles. Soon Eris would see King Arthur trying to thwart her plans and would kill them even though they were human. MacBeth knew he needed to distract her attention and the two of them hiding behind that wall were not doing the trick.
"'Tis the gargoyles she wants!" MacBeth declared and shoved Demona into the open with a kick. "This is going to hurt," he said as he braced himself for the pain that would soon follow. The injury Demona would bare would have killed her had she not been under a spell that links her to MacBeth, making them immortal. MacBeth, being so near her, cried out in pain as they shared the damage the blast caused.
When MacBeth recovered he started firing rounds, draining energy until he too was blasted. He and Demona were thrown by the explosion over the streets below into a hole blown into the next building over, stories up. They were out of the battle for now. Both were too injured to help much further in the battle anyway. Demona was still out, so MacBeth started tending to his wounds. Things were quieter outside, he began to wonder if that was a good or a bad sign. Granted, those were his allies outside, but he had grown too accustom to losing friends.
He sat back at that time to laugh. Here he was, sitting by his life long enemy. They had worked together, to accomplish the same goal, though not the same motives. That hadn't happened in almost a millennia. He helped to save his friends, she wanted to save her daughter, probably the only thing now in the world her dark heart cared about.
Demona began to stir, she heard his laugh and became angry.
Glowing eyes and crying like a cat she lurched forward onto MacBeth, "You! You shoved me into the line of fire!" Her claws immediately started after him. He caught her arms and wrestled her to the ground until he had her pinned.
"Ha, I know ye too well!" He laughed. She was too weak to go further. "Eris was only interested in slaying gargoyles, dohn look at me for being prejudice, 'twas her idea! Besides, she canna kill you, even if she could I would be terribly offended if she took that honor from me!" Demona growled at this.
"Why haven't you killed me?" She spat in anger through her tightly clenched teeth.
"Another time, soon though, I promise. Now, I have a duty to fulfill to King Arthur." And with that MacBeth left Demona and went to go see who was winning.
King Arthur and Elisa had successfully contained Eris with iron chains. Restrained, and powerless due to the control of the magical beings on the gargoyle's side of the fight. Her henchmen were now easy to stop with the number of people on the gargoyles' side. As the groups were pulling together their numbers, Fox Xanatos summoned her mother.
"Sorry about all this dear," Titania, the Queen of Fairies said to her daughter, "she was arrested for her violent protests both in Greece and in Avalon, we will be sure to better confine her, but there was someone else involved in her release, we're starting investigations now on Avalon." As Titania left, she took Eris with her. As they left, all of Eris' henchmen disappeared into oblivion.
Matt Bluestone and Xanatos' goon squad members were rushed to the human hospital but the rest were left to what Xanatos could provide. The injured were aided by who David could hire in the mansion. Integration of gargoyles into society was still difficult, even though some considered them heros.
Alexander was able to heal Broadway, Brooklyn and others at least to the point where they could survive until the sun could heal them, Angela would need a few weeks recovery but she would live...there wasn't a whole lot Puck, Alexander or the others could do, they didn't have enough magic between them.
Unfortunately there was one fatality. The others gave Puck some room as he hovered solemnly over her body. He stroked her hair, "Finny?" A tear dropped. "Puck?" she breathed her last breath, and slowly she turned to stone. Puck immediately began to sob. Though the comical character wasn't very good at showing it, this was one of the only time many of the others could remember him being serious. They couldn't help but also shed a tear for him also.
David approached his best friend and placed a hand on his shoulder, "Don't give up. There's magic within her too,"
Puck stopped bawling and pulled himself together, "of course," he said in a Data tone. Alexander walked over to him, willing to use the rest of his energy in what might be a futile attempt. Even Alex's mother, Fox, came over, willing to do was she could. Together the three slowly put all their energy into reviving the magical gargoyle. Slowly Finny melted into flesh. As soon as she was flesh, puck squealed.
"Finny! Come, come, I'm going to take good care of you," and he pick up the bigger gargoyle and carried her somewhere he could attend to her.
"What was that about?" Elisa finally asked as she contemplated the attack
"She was after the gargoyles." MacBeth reminded.
"She was strong, stronger than Oberon almost." Xanatos inputted.
"Remember what my mother said," Fox added, "She's not doing this alone."
The Scottish King approached King Arthur, who was helping up the injured Griff, and assisted them. "Are you going to be alright?" The English King asked the English Gargoyle, seeing his leg bleeding terribly.
"'Tis nothing a good day of sunshine can't help," Griff said cheerfully. It was almost dawn and David invited Griff to spend the day at the castle atop the Erie Tower.
"Where are you headed?" MacBeth asked the King.
"Well, I will stay here until Griff is well enough to travel again, you?"
"Home again," MacBeth said bored, home was just an empty castle with two employees that were threatening to quit.
"Come with us?" Arthur offered.
"Well, no, I suppose I have some business to attend to."
MacBeth crawled up to the dark floor where he and Demona has been, she wasn't there. Ah, I should have ended it when I had the chance.