Day and Night

Twelve

The laboratory was well hidden, far bellow the city of New York. While the mutates had explored the tunnels beneath the city there were sections they were entirely unaware of. Building projects were abandoned and plans lost, or worse hidden away for purposes that were either illegal, immoral or both.

Anton Sevarius sat back in his chair with a smile, watching his creations attack the party hosted by David Xanatos. He wished he had a white Persian cat to stoke on his lap, for the perfect evil mastermind touch, but animals didn't like him for some reason. Oh well, maybe he could clone a obedient hybrid?

His creations landed on the castle's paraphet, then advanced on the doors. Anton saw someone brace the doors shut, and leaned forward as he realized they looked familiar. He adjusted the camera and zoomed in, revealing Macbeth and Dominique. "Well, well. It seems my old friends are all here," he noted, smiling.

The mutate soldiers were operating on preplanned attack routines, something Anton had decided on early for this attack. He needed to know how effective his creations could be with minimal control on his part. As planned they advanced on the doors, then they ran through their primative thoughts and smashed at the wood and glass, forcing their way inside.

Anton watched over the video feed as Xanatos and his guests armed themselves with swords and swiftly attacked his creations. "What is this?" he cried as one of his creations lost a hand, "The Three Musketeers?"

Distressingly Xanatos, Fox, Macbeth and Dominique proved to be very good with swords, chopping at his servants. Despite the mutates' enhanced strength they weren't very good fighters, and the four were cutting them down far too easily.

Then bullet fire began to cut into his creations, too. Anton switched the view, noting Eliza Maza and her partner, some dumb lug firing away. Soon more than half his force was dead, and the even remote possibility of achieving his other objectives was mostly gone.

Anton activated the speaker built into the 'lead' mutate, waiting a moment for it to activate. "Well," he noted mildly, "this isn't going as planned." He bit back a laugh at everyone's surprised reaction. Clearly they had known it was him, but actually hearing his voice startled them.

Xanatos was the first to recover, scowling as he said, "Sevarius. What do you want?"

Anton Sevarius smiled cheerfully as he answered, "Who says I want anything? After all, you paid me off quite well after you fired me."

"Uncle?" a familiar voice said. Anton switched the camera view, even as a smile broke out on his face as he recognized his niece Alicia.

"I didn't see you over there, dear niece," Anton said cheerfully, glad to see the girl was doing well as he asked, "how have you been? Is my sister still well?"

"Y... yes, but what is...?" Alicia stammered.

"Oh good, I'll try to get a visit in as soon as I can," Anton's voice said breezily, ignoring the girl's stunned expression. He was used to that reaction, when people saw his inventions at work. It was sad really, how people just didn't recognize true genius.

"Anton, focus," Fox barked, drawing his attention back to her and the other fighters. She calmly met the cyborg's gaze as she asked, "What are your creations doing here Anton?"

Anton sighed, trying to sound wounded as he asked, "Can't a man want to stop in and see his old friends?" He laughed, suddenly, nearly cackling as he mused, "No, I suppose not. My pets, kill yourselves please."

With amusement Anton watched them jerk back in shock as his creatures committed suicide, tearing at their throats with razor sharp claws. He was especially amused by the hardened warriors reactions of horror.

It took a moment, but soon Anton's controls confirmed his other servants were dead.. "This was a test, you see," he told them conversationally, "and it seems this new combat type hasn't worked out. Well, I guess it's back to the drawing board." He flipped the switch to kill his final servant, but left the video feed on to watch their reactions.

Sadly, the aftermath was quite predestrian. David took control and claimed it was all a terrorist attack. That offended Anton on principle, this wasn't terrorism! It was SCIENCE! Anyway, it looked like the event would be contained nicely, and the police were willing to go along with it.

When Zanatos started talking about sending the mutate bodies to be examined, Anton reluctantly cut the video feed. A second signal then burnt out all the cybernetics, hopefully making the technology useless for forensic purposes.

"Ah, that was fun," Anton mused as he got up and stretched.

There was always a surge of excitement in launching a new experiment, and today's had been quite successful. Yes, he hadn't been able to get new samples for his experiments from the city's elite, but he had determined the capabilities of his new mutates. And even better, he had full video of the battle to review later.

Anton walked out of his control room, passing the cloning tubes where his next batch of mutates were growing. Back in the day he had just kidnapped homeless people and changed them, but that complicated things. They had all those pesky memories of their old lives, refused to obey and were generally troublesome. Plus, the police occassionally came looking for the homeless, which was also annoying. Clones, clearly, were the way to go.

The engineering lab was nearby, where he tinkered together the technology he aquired from his allies at Cyberbiotics. Renard, the president, would clearly disapprove of the uses his technology was being put to, but Preston Vogel saw the uses of enhanced soldiers. He was clearly frightened of the Gargoyles avenging themselves on him for past sins. Not that Anton actually intended to save Preston, but letting him think that got Anton such wonderful toys.

Anton hefted the massive cybernetic claw that came in the last shipment and murmured, "I wonder who I should use this on?"

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Night had fallen over New York, and with it the gargoyles had awakened. And prdictably, Goliath was going batshit.

"WHERE IS HE?" Goliath roared, his wings outstretched dramatically "When I find Sevarius I will..."

"Oh would you calm down?" Demona finally growled, tired of his histronics. "We don't even know if he was really behind the attack."

The informal council of war on top of the castle included David Xanatos and Macbeth, while Fox was off taking care of her son. Elisa was also there, while Bluestone worked to cover the police side of the situation.

"It certainly sounded like dear Anton," David said dryly.

"True enough," Demona conceded, "but his interests are either in pure science or profit. Does this attack fit either of those?"

"You think he was hired to attack the party?" Elisa asked them thoughtfully, the woman hanging close to Goliath. Probably not to protect herself but to calm him down, which Demona found funny, if a bit sad too.

"Hrm," Goliath scowled.

Demona puffed out a sigh of relief. Not that she really believed that theory, but she wanted to head off having a enraged Goliath tearing up the city. The gargoyles were only tentatively accepted by the people so far, and a rampaging gargoyle would not help matters much.

"Even if he was just hired, we need to find him," Macbeth said gruffly. At the others questioning looks he said, "I do not appreciate being attacked. Even if he is not my personal enemy, I do not intend to let this pass."

"We'll be happy to have the help," David welcomed him.

"Even if it wasn't his idea," Goliath grumbled, "we need to find him."

Demona nodded slightly, "Yes, that is true."

David made a face "The mutates were turned over to the police," he admitted then looked at Elisa, "Maza, what chances do you think you'll have tracking them back?"

"Some," Elisa said after a moment. "Sevarius has to be getting certain resources to do what he does. Massive medical purchases or thefts should be traceable."

"I have contacts in various areas," Macbeth said, "as do Xanatos and Demona." He looked thoughtful, "Should we approach Reynard?"

"I think Daddy would love to help," Fox noted as she came out onto the balcony with them. She went over to David, kissed his cheek and murmured, "Alexander is fine. Owen tells me none of the creatures even tried to get near them."

"Good," David nodded.

Demona nodded, "Maza, send me a list at Nightstone if you need our assistance." She turned towards the edge of the balcony, "Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go."

"Is there something more urgent than determining who attacked us?" Goliath asked flatly.

"Yes," Demona answered without turning around, "to make sure the ones you protected are safe." And with that she launched herself into the night.

The wind whipped around them as Elisa watched her fly off. "You know, I'm really starting to believe she's changed," she mused.

"We will see," Goliath said darkly.

Demona caught updrafts and soared between the buildings of the city away from the castle. Taking off from that height had given her lots of altitude to play with, and she didn't need to land or jump from building to building to reach her destination.

The lights were still on in Alicia's apartment, and looking through the window Demona could see the young woman sitting on her couch in a robe, probably watching TV. The girl looked sad, her eyes dark with worry, and Demona ached to go over and try to take that pain away.

And worse, Demona felt a pang of guilt at sending Alicia home like she had. Sunset and her transformation were coming, so she had ignored Alicia's protests she could help and ordered a police officer to take her home. Had that been a look of betrayal as Alicia was driven off? Had she wounded their deepening friendship tonight?

Distracted by her thoughts Demona didn't see Alicia get up, walking over to the window to look up at her in wonder. She hesitated then opened the window, Alicia smiling up at Demona hopefully then waving her arm.

Demona knew it was a bad idea to see Alicia right now. She had a lot of explaining to do tomorrow as Dominique, including how she knew to use a sword so well. Confusing herself even more about Alicia was a mistake, yet almost without thinking about it she took off, gliding down to land on Alicia's balcony.

"I heard you had some trouble," Demona said after a moment, "I'm sorry I couldn't be there to help."

Alicia just hugged her, the smaller woman grabbing on tightly. "I was so scared...," she stammered, then burst into tears.

Demona froze in surprise, then let her arms wrap around her like she would a gargoyle child. "There there," she murmured as she let Alicia cry herself out.

To be continued...