Xanatos was talking to Dr. Sato when the lights in the Great Hall abruptly turned off, the music stopped, and the dim battery powered safety lights kicked on. There was a moment of nervous murmuring and rustling in the crowd before the emergency generator kicked in, and the lights and music turned back on.
"Strange," Xanatos muttered to himself before turning to his assistant. "Owen, check on the power grid."
"Yes, sir," Owen said with a nod as he slipped away to check on the electric panels for the castle. There was a utility room on the lowest floor, coincidentally located adjacent to the room where they housed all of the Steel and Iron Clan robots. They had checked the integrity of the utilities earlier after the destruction of all of the robots, and they had found nothing amiss then, but when Owen inspected the electric panels now, he found them destroyed and still smoking from a laser blast of some sort, based on the scorch marks.
He made his way to the security room in the hopes of finding out who had destroyed the panels. There was a guard stationed there, overseeing the cameras. Owen ordered the guard to rewind the tapes to the beginning of the party, and then personally scanned the screens himself for anything noteworthy. Even under his scrupulous eye, there didn't appear to be anything odd going on… other than the occasional couple finding a quiet nook for some privacy, including Goliath and Elisa who'd been recorded sneaking off into a closet.
Trysts at a party were unsurprising. Such behavior was to be expected when you combined revelry and alcohol.
Fae were much the same as humans in that way, he mused, though when they got drunk, or were just bored, frankly, they often played pranks in addition to coupling. For the most part, such mischief was harmless, and served little purpose beyond amusement… that is, unless the antics were the handiwork of darker fae, those who had willingly followed Mab. The mayhem they caused was often malicious or even deadly.
That thought gave him pause.
He ordered the guard to fast forward to display the video feed of the electrical control panels at the exact moment that the power went off. There was nothing odd or amiss at first, but then a dark figure suddenly appeared on screen. The figure held up what looked like Brooklyn's missing rifle, and then looked right at the camera—right at him—and smiled. It was a smile that haunted Owen's dreams and deepest, darkest memories. An eldritch smile that stirred the magic deep in his bones, and sent spasms of terror coursing throughout his entire being.
Glued to the screen, Owen watched the power go out, and then the video feed cut to black. As the tape rolled, the video soon reflected the moment the surveillance cameras came back on after the generators kicked in, but when they did, the figure was gone, and the electric panels were nothing but smoking ruins.
"Who the hell was that?" the guard asked.
Owen's blood had turned to ice. He knew who it was. He recognized her. Up until now, she had avoided all detection, avoided being seen. He'd even hoped she'd fled somewhere else, eager to stay clear of Titania's bloodline and the threat of detection that came with such proximity. But it was now glaringly obvious that she'd neither left nor feared detection. The only reason she'd appeared on video now was because she wanted to be seen.
He had to warn Xanatos, for they were all in grave danger. And not just the castle inhabitants—everyone currently in the building. She'd just openly declared war, countermeasures be damned, which meant the clock was already ticking. They had to get everyone out of there posthaste.
"Quick, show me the generators," Owen ordered the guard, needing to check on one more thing first.
The man changed the screen to show live feed of the sub-basement where the generators were up and running at full speed, as necessary to power the entire building after an outage.
As they watched, the same figure appeared. She stood in the center of the room alone. Nothing happened for a few seconds, but then her lips moved and she appeared to speak. Owen couldn't make out the words from the visual, but the cameras caught the lights flickering just before a cool, otherworldly glow filled the generator room.
"Does that woman have four arms?" The guard asked in disbelief. "It—it's probably just a costume…"
New figures began to materialize within the billowing luminescence. A few hundred of them. They dispersed and surrounded the generators, which began to radiate that same eerie glow. There was a bright flash, and then the whole bank of screens in the security room went dark as the power went out in the castle, and likely the whole building, once again.
Owen needed to inform Xanatos of what he saw, what he feared it meant, but most of all, he needed to protect Alex. They had to initiate the Oberon Protocol. Though most of the Steel and Iron Clan robots had been destroyed the night before, and the perimeter had already been breached from the inside, there were other defenses they could still set into action. Though, with the power out, some of those options would be difficult if not impossible to initiate.
Owen turned to leave, busily calculating strategies and alternatives in his head, when he came face to face with one of the guests from the party, and he stiffened in surprise.
"I beg your pardon, madam, but this place is off limits to guests. That includes you, Ms—" Owen said in his cool, emotionless tone.
"Somnus," the woman interjected, and she snapped her fingers.
The guard slumped over instantly at his control panel. Owen staggered, grabbing a hold of the back of the chair, before collapsing heavily to the floor, unable to utter another word as he was ensnared in a deep, dreamless sleep.
...
...
Barely ten minutes after Owen had left to investigate the cause of the earlier outage, the power went out again, even though the generators should have been able to power the castle for hours. The Great Hall was plunged into near darkness again, save for the few safety lights that glowed along the perimeter of the room. Broadway and Angela, who had been chatting with Dr. Sato, looked around nervously. Brooklyn, Katana, Nashville, and Fu-Dog were standing closest to their hosts, and the russet hued gargoyle immediately picked up on their concerned vibe. Brooklyn exchanged a wary glance with his mate.
Lexington was nowhere to be seen.
Fox looked to her husband, concerned. She knew this shouldn't be happening.
Before Xanatos could breathe a word, Fox said, "I'm going to take Alex to the safe room," and quietly slipped away as fleet as her namesake.
"Owen, I need a report on what's going on right now," Xanatos demanded through the radio transmitter on his wrist.
There was no response.
"Owen?" he shouted again.
After the lights had gone out for the second time, a murmur rose up again from the crowd of partygoers. There was a handful of nervous laughs, some even voicing belief that they were about to be delightfully surprised by the host. Xanatos ignored them all and entered a command on his wrist watch to have his exosuit at the ready, but with power to the castle completely shut down, he realized that the closet in his office where he secretly stored his exosuit would be inaccessible. He briefly contemplated going to his office and manually forcing it open with his bare hands when a cold, ethereal light rose up all around the Great Hall.
"What the hell?" Xanatos muttered.
There were a few "Ooohs" and "Ahhhs" as the glow began coalescing into vague figure-like shapes. Xanatos felt the ambient temperature plummet, chilling his flesh—his skin breaking out in goosebumps, and making his breath plume out in front of his face as his breathing quickened.
"Whoa, what are those? Holographics?" someone in the crowd uttered delightedly.
And then those shapes took on more distinct appearances. Tall and short. Young and old. Winged and tailed.
The unmistakable silhouettes of gargoyles.
The crowd laughed and cheered as they thought this was all some kind of show. Xanatos's "gargoyles" that he was allegedly harboring had made an appearance, and they were all in on the joke.
Fu-Dog, standing next to Brooklyn, let out a low ominous growl.
"Yeah, I've got a bad feeling, too, boy," Brooklyn muttered, putting a comforting hand on his beast's head. As he watched, a disturbing realization sunk in. Not only were those apparitions recognizable as his own kind, but his own kin as well. He knew some of those shapes from long ago.
He sidled up alongside their host. "This isn't you, right?"
"No. It's not," Xanatos replied, watching the events warily. "I don't know what those things are."
"I think they're our clan," Brooklyn said. "Our massacred clan, I mean. I… recognize them."
Xanatos whipped his head toward him. "Are you saying the castle is actually haunted?" he replied, shocked.
"Go figure," Brooklyn shrugged. "You can't tell me you're actually surprised, all things considered."
Xanatos decided it was best not to answer that.
Despite the horde of specters swirling in front of them, the crowd remained pleased, ignorant to the truth of what was unfolding before their eyes. Some of the party goers even extended their hands and brushed their fingers against the ethereal light and ectoplasm that made up the bodies of the ghosts.
One particularly bold guest, dressed as a viking stereotype complete with an inaccurately horned helmet, stuck his whole fist inside one of the ghosts and waved it up and down.
"Hey! Check this out!" he said, thrilled.
And then the ghost turned on him.
It already looked vicious with its long snout and curved horns—similar to the ones in the guest's helm, but then it roared, revealing a dark maw and wickedly sharp-looking teeth. It struck out at the man, the incorporeal suddenly becoming tangible, and sent the human flying across the Great Hall and into a wall several yards away. He slumped onto the floor, his cheesy Viksø-inspired helmet clattering noisily next to him.
Fu-Dog barked ferociously and leapt at the attacking phantom.
"Fu! No!" Brooklyn called after him.
The ghost was unaffected by Fu-Dog's attack, but it lashed out at the gargoyle beast and flung him back savagely into one of the banquet tables, sending all manner of food and drink flying as his body broke the table into two halves.
Fu whimpered, but then fell silent and didn't get up.
Brooklyn ran to his companion's side, relieved to find he was still breathing, but also quickly noticed a wicked gash along his flank that would need immediate attention. He grabbed a nearby tablecloth and tore a large swath of it to use as a makeshift bandage that he wrapped around the beast's leg. Then he hefted Fu-Dog up, groaning from his great weight, and carried him towards a safer location, preferably in one of the quieter corridors. He beckoned to his son to follow with a single gesture of his head as he exited the Great Hall.
"Gnash, I need you to stay with Fu and look after him, okay?" Brooklyn instructed his son who had followed his father into the east corridor.
"Dad! You always do this!" Nashville argued. "I can help!"
"Just do as I say!" Brooklyn snapped, still angry about his son's disobedience from the previous night.
Brooklyn could hear the bedlam unfolding on the other side of the door. He turned and left his son sullenly behind, bursting through the doors to utter chaos. Like a switch had been flipped when the first spirit had turned violent, all of the ghosts in the room had begun to attack, smashing into the decor, uprooting the fairy tale trees, flipping more tables full of catering and drinks, sending food, dishes, and glassware across the room, or flinging the tables themselves across the Great Hall and against the walls, or the unlucky person who happened to be standing in their path.
Laughter turned into screaming as people were flung backwards, knocked down, or dragged by the rapidly moving ghosts. One gargoyle passed right through one unlucky partygoer instead of tossing her away. Her eyes went wide with shock as if she had seen horrors unimaginable, and she screamed before slumping to the ground.
"We need to evacuate the castle," Xanatos said urgently as Brooklyn reentered the Great Hall. He had looked for Goliath first, but could not find the fierce gargoyle leader.
"Ya think?" Brooklyn replied sarcastically before ducking to avoid a plate that went whizzing past his head.
"Deploy the security team to the Great Hall," Xanatos ordered into his wrist communicator.
"If only someone had warned you to cancel this disaster of a party," Brooklyn shouted as he helped lift a table off of an injured party guest. "Oh wait…"
Xanatos scowled at the russet gargoyle, but said nothing. The screams all around them, however, spoke volumes.
...
...
"I could just break down the door," Goliath suggested as he and Elisa debated how to get out of their current situation.
"And let everyone in the whole castle know what we were doing together in here? No thanks," Elisa huffed. "If I could see anything in this black hole of a closet, I could probably pick the lock, but I don't have anything to pick it with. You can see better in the dark than I can. Find me something I can use."
Irritated, Elisa tugged at the purple sash tying her hair back. For the first time in her life, she regretted the lack of bobby pins needed for her costume.
Goliath wondered if he could use a talon to do it, when primal screams and shouts of terror floated in from outside.
"Fuck the lock, we need out now!" Elisa ordered, immediately changing her mind about being discrete.
Without further hesitation, Goliath slammed his shoulder into the door, breaking it down in one blow.
...
...
Dr. Sato army-crawled across the ground in an effort to avoid any whirling debris as he tried to reach injured partygoers. Doing so was a challenge, but he eventually made his way to the "viking" who had been knocked out cold against the wall. Katana, with 'Egwardo' strapped to her back, spotted the doctor and knelt down next to him to offer any assistance.
"I am never attending another one of Xanatos's Halloween parties ever again!" he said to the female gargoyle.
The unconscious man groaned and started to stir. Dr. Sato could feel a large bump forming on the back of his head where he had hit the wall. He began to check his limbs, when the man yelped and tried to sit up as he palpated his arm.
"Looks like your arm is broken," Dr. Sato said to the dazed man. "Do you think you can walk?"
"I… I think so," the man said, still in shock.
"It is not safe to move," Katana said, indicating the mass of ghosts that were wreaking havoc all around them.
A table flew up against the wall near them at that moment, nearly colliding with the window. They all ducked further down to avoid it. Thankfully, no glass had been shattered above them, though a splintered table leg ricocheted off the wall and into Katana's arm. She hissed and clutched the large scratch the jagged end left behind.
"It's not safe to stay either," Dr. Sato countered.
The Xanatos Enterprises Security Force, dressed in blue tactical gear, flooded the room. They covered the entrances and exits and began ushering people toward the bank of elevators.
A phantom gargoyle shot across the room toward a group of guests that were being led by one of the commandos toward the exits. It got too close, and the security guard fired at the angry spirit with his blaster rifle. The laser did nothing but pass harmlessly through the spirit, hitting the wall behind it instead, leaving a dark scorch mark behind. But the action aggravated the spirit, and it bolted forward at the commando, pushing him back violently against the wall, an attack from which he did not immediately rise.
Other commandos were dispatched similarly as they were picked up by spirits and thrown violently across the room. Dismayed by the carnage being inflicted around them, Broadway and Angela looked for something, anything, they could to to help, so Broadway carefully picked up the body of one commando, and Angela picked up another and carried the unconscious guards into a corridor and, they hoped, away from further harm.
The guards were the only ones actively engaging the ghosts, which caused enough of a distraction that many of the guests were able to make their way to the elevators in a disorderly panic.
"We should go now," Katana said to Dr. Sato.
He nodded and got under the man's good arm, and Katana helped steady him as he stood up. Then together they helped him walk to the bank of elevators, dodging a few flying tables, while also navigating the crush of people trying to escape.
One man was shouting over the crowd, looking for someone. "My wife! Has anyone seen my wife? Margot! Margot, where are you?"
The press of people at their backs was too strong to withstand, so they had to ignore the man's pleas and keep moving.
Dr. Sato hit the elevator button, but nothing happened. There was no light indicating it was moving up, and there was no sound.
"The elevators have stopped working," he gasped, looking to Katana for ideas.
By that point, a mass of people had converged at the elevators, and panic started to swell as they feared being trapped nearly half a mile above street level with all hell breaking loose around them.
Brooklyn and Xanatos made their way through the crowd, who had started pushing and shoving each other in an attempt to get to the elevator, until they made it to Dr. Sato, Katana, and the man they held up between them.
"Move to the emergency exit stairs down at the other end of the wall," Xanatos yelled over the crowd, pointing everyone toward the door. Then, more quietly to Brooklyn, he whispered, "It's a long walk down, but they can't stay here. Not until we figure out how to contain these things."
"They're not things!" Brooklyn growled. "They're my clan!"
"I don't care who or what they are, something needs to be done about them," Xanatos argued.
Ignoring the two males, Katana started to direct people toward the emergency exit.
"Everyone out," she ordered. "Calmly, please."
Dr. Sato helped the injured man he had been aiding to the stairs, but by then his shock had started to wear off and he was capable of making it down on his own. The doctor decided to stay behind instead of fleeing with the crowd to help anyone else who was too hurt to leave the castle on their own.
All the while, the apparitions were howling and raging around the Great Hall. Their low groans and wails turned into shrieks and cries that built into an ear-piercing, discordant racket not of this world.
At that moment, Elisa and Goliath emerged from the east corridor and stared in shock at the chaos. They'd found Nashville and the injured Fu-Dog in the corridor, and after ensuring they were both safe enough, had run in to see what was going on at the party. As they stood there watching in horror, a creeping sensation came over Goliath as he observed the apparitions that were moving about the room, destroying the furnishings and decor, attacking guests, and unleashing all kinds of destruction and mayhem.
"They look like gargoyles," Elisa said, her hair blowing about her face from the wind whipped up by the frenetically moving spirits.
"I know them…" Goliath said, horrified.
"Who are they?" Elisa shouted over the sound, though she already suspected the answer.
"They are my clan," Goliath replied, his voice rough with emotion. "My fallen clan." Memories of his time in the caverns beneath Wyvern Hill with the ghosts of the Captain of the Guard and Hakon uncomfortably sprang to mind.
The guests were slowly filtering down the emergency exit stairs, but there was still a large crowd that was panicking more and more, pushing and shoving each other to get out. Goliath and Elisa made their way around the perimeter of the Great Hall, working toward Brooklyn and Xanatos who were desperately trying to control the crowd.
"Is there fighting elsewhere in the castle? You guys look like you've already seen some action," Brooklyn shouted over the crowd when he spotted the pair.
Elisa's face grew hot with embarrassment as she glanced at the scratch marks her nails had left on Goliath's torso. She opened her mouth to speak, but Goliath beat her to it.
"This is the first fray we have come upon. We were temporarily trapped in a closet," Goliath replied bluntly. Elisa flinched and bit her tongue so that she didn't groan at his forthrightness.
"Why were you—" Brooklyn started to ask, and then abruptly stopped, realization dawning. "Uh, nevermind," he finished, rolling his eyes.
"What is happening here?" Goliath asked.
"I'm not entirely sure, but I think we now know why weird things have been happening around the castle recently," Brooklyn replied.
Goliath scowled, trying to process.
"We need to get control of this crowd before someone is crushed or worse," Elisa shouted.
Goliath considered his options momentarily, and then he sucked in a deep breath before roaring out, "HALT!" His voice was so rich, it was inhuman, and his wings expanded out in a loud leathery snap as he bellowed, making everyone in the vicinity turn in shock to look at him.
"Now," he commanded, after he had their attention. "Please exit calmly down the stairs."
Heeding the large and intimidating gargoyle's instructions, the party guests pressed toward the exit in a more orderly fashion. The detail and mechanics of his wings, coupled with the richness of his voice, were a bit startling to behold, and a few began to suspect that some of the guests dressed as gargoyles may not have been in costume after all. A handful even looked furtively back over their shoulders at Goliath, wondering if he was coming after them next.