Castle rushed into the 12th precinct and looked around wildly. Kate was nowhere in sight. He could see Ryan and Esposito, still wearing vests, giving their reports to Captain Gates through the window of her office, but unless she was sitting on the floor in a corner, Kate wasn't with them.
Rick moved to her desk and began searching for something – anything – to suggest she had been there recently.
There was nothing.
"Hey, Castle," Esposito called as he and Ryan exited the captain's office. "Beckett's not here. She's still over at Central Park helping with the cleanup of what happened."
"What the hell did happen?" Castle asked, the image of what he'd seen on the news still incomprehensible.
"Did you watch it?" Ryan asked. "I saw news cameras before things started going down."
"Yes, but I'm not sure I believe it. If I wasn't positive it was Beckett on the screen, I would have thought I'd tuned into SyFy."
"Believe me, Bro, everything you saw on the news was real," said Esposito.
"When Beckett shot fire out of her fingers…" Ryan trailed off, shaking his head.
"Gates is requesting a copy of all the footage the news channels took," Espo continued. "Just to try to make sense of it all."
"Good luck with that," said Castle. "Is it really all over for now? Do you think I should go down to the park? Kate is my partner, after all."
"But you're still not a cop, Castle," retorted Esposito. "I'm not going back there until this Garruk dude is vaporized like that Stomper thing was."
"I think I heard one of them – Gideon? – say 'returned to the Æther'," Ryan corrected.
"Semantics, Bro. However you want to word it, I'm staying away from all the city parks until he's gone."
Ryan nodded, agreeing with the point.
"Beckett's got the magic people to deal with anyway, Castle..." Espo went on.
"Planeswalkers," Rick interrupted.
"Whatever," Esposito shot back. "My point is they're the ones who took out the wolves and the Stomper thing. The rest of us were in full retreat – cops and National Guard. You're a help, Castle, but this time you might be in the way."
Rick's face fell.
"Castle,once everything began going down, and those wolves showed up, we were in the way," Ryan pointed between Esposito and himself. "Don't take it personally."
"You're right," Castle conceded. "Just… If you hear anything from her?"
"We'll let you know," said Ryan. "She'll probably call you first anyway."
XXXXXX
"Remember what we have gone over. Think of the spell - the very creature you want to summon - and use mana to let the Æther take that creature's shape."
Kate was sweating. Not from exhaustion, but from nerves.
Gideon had the bright idea to train Beckett to summon animals from the Æther. Kate wasn't sure at first, she wasn't familiar with creatures from other planes and she wasn't sure she could control any animals she did know.
If she even managed to summon anything, of course.
She was trying, but the first two times she had tried to summon a mastiff, she had failed, mostly because her worries broke her concentration. Gideon's encouragement helped, but she had to focus to succeed.
"Come on Kate; you can do it!" Jace's words of encouragement helped steady her mind. Using the mana she had, she thought of the spell once again. It was pretty simple, or so they said. Normal people, who weren't even planeswalkers could do it, they said. Ha. I'd like to see...
"Focus, Kate!" Gideon's words snapped her attention back to the spell. She took a deep breath. It's just a dog, a big dog, but just a dog. Simple. I can do this; I can do it… She focused, and put in an extreme mental effort to summon-
"You did it!"
Kate heard a deep bark and realized she had been squeezing her eyes shut. Opening them, she was face to face with a dog the size of a lion.
"I… wow." Kate was flustered as to what to say, she guessed she shouldn't be surprised, but somehow it still was shocking to see something that wasn't there seconds before.
Gideon sent the dog back to the Æther. "All right. Now that you know you can do this, I want you to practice more. We need to continue to prepare for Garruk's next attack, and hopefully, catch and stop him. Summon it again."
"I've got it! Why didn't I think of this before?" Jace's sudden outburst made Gideon and Kate turn their heads towards him. "All we need to summon is a Frost Lynx and an angel. The two should be enough to hold off a massive, one creature attack, or multiple attacks from smaller creatures, like the undead wolves we saw before."
"I don't know, Jace," countered Gideon. "I'm sure that's a great strategy and all, but I still think we need a way to keep any battle that happens concealed. Remember, on Earth, no one knows about magic, and even on other planes, few people know that their plane of existence is not the only one. I don't think Earth is ready for that kind of information yet."
"Earth may not be ready, but this is out there," Kate said; leaving off her summoning practice for the moment.
"What do you mean?" asked Gideon.
"There's no way the city doesn't know what happened by now," Kate answered. "Not only did I see news cameras during the fight, there's no doubt cell-phone footage was uploaded to YouTube within 5 minutes of it happening."
"What is 'YouTube'?" asked Chandra.
"That's not important," Kate shook her head. "The point is, news of our little skirmish has probably gone national – if not worldwide by now."
"Well, we still need to at least try to keep things to a minimum," said Gideon.
"I can solve that problem," Nissa jumped in. "If I were to cast a spell of fog to conceal our battle, it would be like it never happened."
"But what about the battlefield? The wreckage of the battle is sure to raise questions," Kate countered.
"Remember why you brought me here? I can heal the land afterward. Speaking of which, I still should go repair the park."
"Right. And while you do that, what do we do?" asked Kate.
Jace spoke up again. "We find Ob Nixilis, and get him to help us."
"What if he doesn't?"
"Then we will be on our own."
Kate wasn't sure she liked the sound of that. Yes, they'd held their own during the battle, but she felt like it was only just. Put the way Jace had, it sounded ominous.
"Nissa you can start with the park," Jace continued, "while Chandra and I see if we can convince Ob to help us, and not die in the process." He rolled his eyes self-deprecatingly. "Then Nissa; you, Gideon, and Kate can do the fog and help with the defense of New York."
"Wow. You sound like I do when I'm giving orders to Ryan and Esposito," Kate mentioned.
Jace smiled.
"Anytime you need a person with a brain, just ask me." Then he whispered to Kate, "Don't ask Chandra for anything that has to do with plans. They usually entail a lot of fire and not much else."
"Thanks for the tip," she grinned.
"What did you say now?" Chandra walked over, smiling. "I may not think too much, but I can say that fire did save us all once."
"Of course you were listening. I have already told you a million times that more fire isn't a solution!"
"I agree with you, Jace," Chandra said.
"Wait, what?"
"It's not always a solution, but it is always fun," she said with a devilish smile.
XXXXX
Kate, Nissa, and Gideon arrived at Washington Market Park later that day, the sun still visible between the skyscrapers. Jace and Chandra had left Earth a few hours previously to find Ob Nixilis.
"This place looks terrible," Nissa said. "I hate this curse. Everything dies in Garruk's wake."
"That's why we took our oaths, remember?" Gideon asked rhetorically. "This is exactly what the Gatewatch is supposed to prevent."
"Oaths?" Kate asked.
"The plane where we met - Zendikar - was not always a peaceful place," Nissa said. "The Roil, as it was called, was a magical response the plane took to eradicate a great evil that had been trapped inside it, called The Eldrazi. These titans ravaged entire planes, destroying and distorting everything in their path. Many years ago, they were trapped, but they finally were released again. In a moment crucial in the war, at its darkest hour, we took an oath to prevent such evils and to rid them from the planes."
"That's why we are here at Earth. When we found out about Garruk, we needed to intervene." Gideon shifted. "Killing the Eldrazi was a challenge that we could only overcome by working together. The three titans, Ulamog, Kozilek, and Emrakul almost killed us and everyone on Zendikar and Innistrad, but together we killed each of them."
"What does it mean, to join the Gatewatch?" Kate asked.
"It means to take the oath to protect the order of the planes. I took the oath for the life of every plane," Nissa said reverently.
"And I took the oath for justice and peace." Gideon paused. "Nissa, we need to get on with this. We are running out of time, and Garruk will only grow stronger with the next turn of events."
Kate pondered what Nissa and Gideon had described. It sounded a lot like the Oath of Honor she had taken when she graduated from the academy. It was something to think about later, when they weren't in such a life or death situation. …
The three of them walked into the park. It was eerily silent. Kate noticed a child of about six years old crying, looking at the twisted form of what had probably been the monkey bars or a swing set from the playground. "Guys, let me go talk to that kid, I'll be back in a sec."
Gideon and Nissa watched Kate jog over to the boy, then kneel to speak to him.
"Do you think she would be a good choice for the Gatewatch?" Gideon asked.
"I don't know, Gideon," she answered, continuing to watch Kate. "She's very tied to this plane… And the people in it."
"That doesn't mean…" Gideon began.
"No, you're right," Nissa interrupted. "But it also goes back to this being a non-magical plane. She's become more accepting of magic and us, but to ask her to defend other planes – possibly at the expense of this one – is another story. We can invite her..." she paused and looked at Gideon seriously. "But it must be her choice, and there is no wrong one. If she chooses not to join, it cannot make us think less of her."
Gideon nodded and turned back to watching Kate with the child.
XXXXXX
"Hey," Kate reached the boy and knelt beside him. "Are you okay?"
The boy sniffled before he replied.
"Not s'posed to talk to strangers."
"And that's a good thing," Kate nodded. She pulled her badge out of her pocket. "But you know what? I'm a cop." She held out the badge and the boy took it, holding it in wonder.
"My name's Kate, what's yours?"
"How come you're not dressed like a cop?"
Kate smiled. "I'm a detective. Detective's don't have to wear a uniform except for special occasions." Her smile dropped as Captain Montgomery's funeral and her shooting came to mind.
"I'm Barry, can I keep it?" he asked, holding up the badge.
"Hi, Barry," the smile was back. "And no, I'm sorry. I kinda need that to tell people I'm a cop. They might not believe me without it since I'm not in uniform and they can't tell."
"Bad guys too?"
"Bad guys too."
"Okay," Barry handed Kate the badge and she returned it to her pocket.
"Now, Barry, are you crying about the park?"
"Yeah. I don't un'erstand what happened. I live over there," he pointed to an apartment building across the street. "And I come here every week. My mom said I could come over by myself today, 'cause she can see me out the window and she's coming in a sec. I was here last week and it wasn't like this. I wanna play!" The tears were coming faster now.
Suddenly a shout came from across the street.
"Hey! What the hell do you think you're doing with my kid!"
Kate stood as the irate woman crossed the street, pulling her badge from her pocket again, along with her ID. She noticed Gideon raising his hands to possibly freeze the woman in place, but Kate shook her head at him, and he lowered them.
"Hi, I'm Detective Kate Beckett with the NYPD," she introduced herself, holding the badge and ID out for the woman to examine.
"Mom! She's a cop!" Barry said excitedly, tears drying for a moment.
The woman scrutinized the identification then glanced at Beckett.
"Do you know what happened here?" she asked, softening her gaze.
"Do you watch TV?" Kate countered, eyebrows raised.
The woman's face shot back to Kate's, an expression of shock developing as she realized this was the woman with the fire she'd seen on the news.
"Oh, my God!" she pulled her son to her side.
"Mom!" Barry whined.
"We won't hurt anyone," Kate assured.
"'Cept bad guys!" Barry interrupted.
Kate smiled down at him. "Except bad guys," she repeated. "I feel like this…" she gestured around the park. "…is a little bit my fault. I was here jogging when one of those bad guys attacked me and did all this."
"Then it's not your fault," protested Barry. "It's the bad person's fault."
"You're right, Barry."
"Can this be repaired?" asked the mother. "It looks like nothing will ever grow here again."
"I brought a couple of friends with me who say they can fix the park," Kate replied, pointing over to Nissa and Gideon. "I don't know if they can fix the playground equipment, Barry, but I have another friend who I bet will buy all new stuff to play on."
"Really?" asked the boy.
"And I wouldn't be surprised if he came down to play on it too. He's a big kid just like you." Kate stopped, thinking she really needed to call Castle. He must be out of his mind with worry. And, yeah, she probably should let him know she'd promised a kid he'd buy new playground equipment. It might take awhile, but she'd pay him back if it came to it.
"So, what's going to happen? Should we be here?" Barry's mother broke into Kate's thoughts.
She blinked.
"You know, I'm not exactly sure how it's going to work. I don't think there will be any danger, but it might be a good idea if you left, just to be on the safe side."
"But I wanna play when it's done," Barry pouted.
Kate knelt beside the boy again.
"I understand that Barry," she said. "But I don't know how long it's gonna take to fix. It might be dark before we're done. Or it might even be tomorrow or next week before everything's back to normal."
"Okaaaayyy," the boy dragged the word out. He took his mother's hand and Kate stood and watched as they crossed the street and entered the apartment building. She waved Nissa and Gideon over.
"Let's get this show on the road."
XXXXXX
Nissa closed her eyes while Gideon kept a lookout for anyone who would see. There was still a need to keep this somewhat secret, but it was hard to keep a visible secret in the middle of a bustling city. Besides, Kate said anybody watching would probably block it out within a week as unbelievable. Even Barry would think it was his imagination by the time he hit his teens.
"Now," Gideon said. There were only three cars driving in the streets to the side.
With a burst of green light, Nissa touched the ground. Almost immediately, a green shoot sprouted between her fingers out of the charred gray ground. Growing at an unnatural pace, it was followed by many others, covering the ground in the grass. "It's like watching a time-lapse," Kate whispered as she watched the ethereal event. Spreading through the ground around the kneeling planeswalker, the foliage expanded, and more plants grew at an amazing speed. The corpses of trees began to revitalize, showing life once more. Flowers, bushes, and shoots of vines retook the dead ground, filling it with life once again. It continued, the circle of green growing faster and faster, the plants growing, the life spreading, until Nissa lifted her hand and it stopped.
Kate looked around, her mouth hanging open. The park she remembered going to; the park she remembered jogging in less than a week ago, was right in front of her. Then she noticed something else. It wasn't silent anymore. It was as if the animals had realized their home was intact again. Birds had already returned, chirping away their cheerful melodies.
A beatific smile adorned Nissa's face.
"This is what I took my oath for."
Powerful ending, huh? I love the gatewatch, and that was all quotes directly from the cards. :P
I've got to stop apologizing for every time I can't keep up with this, because that's like always.
But anyways, what do you think? I think Netsrik1 is a great writer, that's what I think.
Comment and follow below!