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Souls of the Night Vol. 3

12.

"Michael, I'm so hungry," Falk mumbled and looked around eagerly. The people whose gaze he met with his golden eyes with the slit pupil immediately lost their curious stare and turned their heads away, wide-eyed and strained. As always, they had been given plenty of space right from the start. Michael had never known it any other way - whenever he was out and about with members of his family who were ... were extraordinary. And even though many New Yorkers had become accustomed to non-humans, it was still a little unsettling and usually too much of a challenge to sit near such exotic beings on the subway. You had to be a big gargoyle or "furry" fan to like something like that. Which the woman three yards from them did not, as she yelped and shivered when Falk tried to pass under her legs in order to sniff the ground for prey. Michael jumped up, grabbed the lashing tiger tail and pulled Falk back by it. The child screeched his feline yowl and looked angrily at Michael as he dropped back onto the seat and returned his feline stare.

"Public, - human mode," he said in a deep, looming, emotionless voice that he had learned from his father (and a little from Nora) since his earliest youth. He could have used sign language to get the point across because by now most non-humans knew sign language and Falk and Cat did anyway but most of the time hardly anyone used sign language because verbal words were much better at conveying emotions. For other things, internationally understandable body language was enough. Michael pointed to the seat next to him. With ears laid back Falk crawled into the space next to his sister, which he had left shortly before. Michael looked apologetically at the woman and flashed his most charming smile. "Sorry," he mumbled and the lady (too old for him but not yet dead) lowered her eyes shamefacedly and nodded while her cheeks regained some color. The other people largely turned their heads away as Michael's, again less than friendly gaze wandered over them. Well, that was how even New Yorkers reacted when they were locked in a metal caterpillar with creatures that, as small, exotic and cute as they looked, showed a bunch of sharp fangs as soon as they opened their mouths. The fact that his sister was yawning loudly at that very moment didn't make it any better.

"I'm starving," Falk whimpered and his sister lowered the tablet Michael had been using to keep them quiet for the last few hours. "Me too. And the batteries are flat here."

Shit! thought Michael.

He took the tablet from Cat, which really was dead, before one of the terror twins could get the idea to bring it back to life with electrical first aid (something that had killed the last three tablets). He rummaged in his backpack for sweets. He did indeed find a quarter full pack of Jolly Rancher. As Falk greedily reached into the packet, his sister grimaced.

"I prefer caramel."

Michael laughed softly and rather mockingly. "We wouldn't be here if you both knew how to handle caramel. It's this or nothing, cut-out Tigress."

Cat puffed out her hairy cheeks and placed a hand on the area underneath her longer light blonde hair where her fur was now much shorter than elsewhere.

'You're mean," she said, grumbling.

"It's my job to be mean, sister. Grab in the bag." Somewhat prissily, Cat leaned over Falk and peeked into the bag before taking a watermelon-flavored candy.

"If you let me zap the doors open, we could catch some real food outside," she wispered.

"Nothing gets zapped here at all. I'm sick of this constant paperwork when we use our powers for no reason. We wait like normal, good humans. Pull yourselves together. This isn't pleasant for anyone," grumbled Michael, adjusting the infant hatchling on his lap. Well - admittedly - even if he hadn't been sitting, Vincent's grip of arms, legs, tail and wings around his torso would have been unbroken. He was just in that adorable clutching phase. That something like this had to happen during his babysitting evening of all times. On the other hand... with Falk and Cat, he should have expected an emergency visit. Not to the emergency doctor, not to the hospital. No - to the hairdresser! And which hairdresser was open on a Friday night? None - not even in New York. At least none that would have let in figures that looked like they'd escaped from kindergarten on Doctor Moreau's island.

Even Michael, who looked like a human - and whose "Manhattan Labyrinth Sanctuary" jacket made him look like a caretaker of these very creatures (even though he was one of them himself)- wouldn't have been able to convince anyone to cut gum out of the fur of hyperactive monster children with fangs. No one except the Three Stooges. Their store really was called that. They had been former residents of the Labyrinth community - first in the classic, underground one (recognized by the state since 2003) where cases were taken in without many questions being asked, later in the above-ground complex where homeless people could live, have an address, look for work until they could keep themselves financially afloat again. These three guys had set up their own hairdressing salon (a Labyrinth success story) and only with them did they have home advantage. Unfortunately, their salon was in the Bronx. And now - on the way home - the subway was stuck!

They had been stuck here for more than an hour with a bunch of humans stinking of too much perfume, sweat and by now general frustration after a long day at work or an interrupted pre-binging on the way to the next party. Or ... the people were stuck here with two now totally famished, overwrought mutant children, a toddler hatchling who was by now making hungry chirping noises himself and would probably start crying soon, and their MORE than pissed-off babysitter who would have loved to have started the train with a powerful ZAPP and let it crash through whatever obstacle.

Michael lifted his eyes to look longingly into the deep darkness of the subway tunnels where he had spent part of his life - only to see a teenager across from them, unobtrusively filming them with his phone. It was half hidden behind his jacket sleeve and from the guy's perplexed frown you could see that he didn't understand why there was only pixel salad on his screen, but Michael was just fine with this fruitless intrusion into their privacy. He couldn't start the train for fear of overloading the system and letting it get out of control (again). And he refused to let the doors open without a serious reason. But this was an invitation. He lifted his finger - just as unobtrusively as the guy was trying to find a setting that would capture him and his siblings on film - fixed his gaze intently on the cell phone and let a tiny spark of electricity - barely visible through the bright lighting in the car - jump towards the device. The reaction was immediate. The young guy widened his eyes, suddenly stopped trying to be secretive, raised the cell phone in front of his face and typed on the screen. But it remained dead, as it should. Micheal leaned back a little more contentedly and stroked Vincent's lower back.

"Are you okay, little brother? Want some candy?" he asked mollified.

Vincent nodded and closed his light brown wings even tighter around his torso after Michael had shoved a cherry-flavored treat into his mouth. The child's behavior was not over-excited like the twins, but silent and almost lethargic. Maybe ... not an unusual reaction when the siblings sifted so much more attention from their surroundings just because you weren't causing terror like them. Vincent was Micheal's favorite, even if he didn't make a big deal of it. He also liked the others and Kat and Falk because they were pure vitality even without using their electricity. But Vincent was a calming pool in a troubled sea. And fortunately, like all non-humans in the labyrinth, he had a much higher ability to ignore invading people than normal children. They had to, even if their shapeshifter abilities were not yet developed, or perhaps never would develop. Of course, the bracelets helped, but the stares never stopped. All clan members - whether mutants or gargoyles - had to develop strong characters who didn't mind being gawked at by the omnipresent humans. Of course - for as long as he could remember, gargoyles (and shortly afterwards mutants and gargoyle clones) had been the focus of public attention. Something that had made it possible for the Labyrinth Sanctuary to be officially recognized and supported as a shelter for the homeless after everyone had come to terms with the fact that very ... simple gargoyle clones and heavily mutated humans "worked" there and watched over the weakest members of society. Michael didn't envy his dad the paperwork he still had to deal with all the time.

The four-year-old hatchling munched and sucked on his sweet, which made Michael grin. Somehow he really was his cousin - by a few percentage points. Fifteen years ago, it would have been impossible to take one of the clones' young on a trip. Less so Delilah, but the boys had been incredibly - almost dangerously - protective. And now?- now they gladly accepted the offer of someone else taking one of the children with them. They were probably using the time to practise producing more hatchlings. Was it Thailog's intention when he had taken the few percentages of human DNA (the DNA of his own aunt Elisa) that these few strands would have an effect on procreation and reproductive characteristics? Rather unlikely. It had to be a mere coincidence.

At first, everyone had thought Delilah and the other clones had no sex drive. They had observed Maggie's pregnancies with interest, but hadn't really understood that they themselves could make something similar to "babies". That just hadn't been in the boys' programming and where they could have been taught to read and write and much else - how were they supposed to learn THAT? With which teacher? Delilah also seemed to have no interest in educating her "brothers" - understandable after being designed by Thailog as a sex toy and not wanting to go back to being sexualized. Only after the breeding season and her first egg did that change. As if the right mental and physical switches had flipped after 2008. Not only did Delilah, who was now leader of the Labyrinth Clan alongside his dad, come into heat more often and at shorter intervals. No, her eggs were also maturing faster and hatching earlier.

Strangely enough, one thing that kept the harmony in the clan among the gargoyle members of the clan was the open relationship Delilah had with her three "brothers". Malibu was closest to her mate and her first egg - Murrieta, 2010 - was with him, which was kind of obvious from the beak even though the little one had Delilah's skin color. Lomita - hatched in 2015 - had Hudson's coloring, proving that the color variation of the clones did not carry over to the next generation. But Vincent had hatched from the third egg, and paternity obviously lay with Hollywood, even though he had white hair like his mom. Delilah didn't care who fertilized her eggs. She wanted harmony in the clan and for her clan to thrive - and so she succeeded without any problems. She was not a broodmare - she could say no at any time. But she didn't. She was simply self-determined. And she wanted a big clan. The turquoise child on his lap lifted his head and Michael thought he wanted another piece of candy before his mutant siblings emptied the bag completely, but Vincent turned his head away when he tried to give him one. His little nose twitched.

"Smell," he chirped, turning his head in the other direction to determine where said smell was coming from.

"Rats?" Cat asked, and Falk was already licking his nostrils.

"Don't you dare. We don't do that in front of humans," Michael whispered. "Vincent, it's okay. The train will be moving soon. Then you'll get something better."

"No food. Gargle," Vincent said, taking another deep breath and then began to squirm off Michael's lap.

"Another gargoyle? Here? Nonsense," Falk said, trying to block his younger brother's path with a wing. The child crawled underneath and sniffed his way through the wagon.

"Vincent stop," Michael hissed. He had known he should have brought a leash! But otherwise Vincent was the best behaved of the lot. Frustrated, Michael opened his mouth and growled. And this sound - as little human as his parents were - made the child stop. Michael came to him and picked him up. "There's no other gargoyle here, Vinnie. You just miss your daddies and mommies. We'll be home soon, okay?"

The child shook his head and pointed through the door into the next carriage. "Gargle," he said firmly. Cat's little hand found the fabric of his pants leg. When he looked down, he saw her nostrils puffing out too. "He's right. I smell gargoyle. Male. But not a smell I've smelled before."

"Why would a foreign gargoyle ride a train? Why would anyone with wings ride the New York subway," Falk grumbled, getting a feline know-it-all look from his sister.

"Maybe because he was also banned from flying for a month because he blew up his dad's best kitchen pot?"

"It was an experiment! And I didn't know that it-"

"Cut it out, kids," Michael groaned while trying to keep a squirming, seven-limbed child in his arms. He knew when he had lost.

"We're looking at what Vincent perceives. But we don't approach those-whatever. Do you understand that?"

"Observation and data collection! Yes!" Falk shrieked, bouncing with Cat towards the next carriage.

.

.

"That one?

"Mhmm!" Vincent nodded avidly and, like them all, stared through the small window of the next carriage. Here - in the tunnels between two wagons - it smelled musty. Like rat droppings and damp concrete. But now - with one less door between them and this - whatever he was, that was slouching on one of the benches - Michael also noticed the smell. With Vincent still in his arms, Cat and Falk clawed into the metal to the left and right of the door and "observed" the strange, camouflaged gargoyle in their " turf" .

He didn't believe from the start that it was just a trick, that they could manipulate the wagon doors to get outside - neither Cat, nor Falk and certainly not Vincent, who had given the impulse to explore, were cunning enough for that. But seeing this guy sitting there now was unsettling. He looked normal - but ailing. So sickly that he had the same effect as Micheal and his entourage on his fellow stuck travelers and was given a lot of space.

"If that's a gargoyle ... then he must be using one of the patches," Michael speculated.

"Or he's a shapeshifter like Zoey and Warren," Cat said rather smartly.

"Mhmmm." Michael narrowed his eyes and stared at the man again. He wouldn't notice. He didn't seem like he was noticing anything right now. He looked like he was incubating the latest corona virus right now. He held his stomach and shivered, his eyes almost completely closed as if the light was causing him immense pain. The cheap leather seats were already damp and shiny from his sweat. In addition, although his human form seemed mixed-race like Michael's own, he was as pale as a sheet, his lips almost blue as if he were about to choke, even though he was breathing hard. Normally - even in New York - someone would eventually try to help an obviously suffering, sick person.

But since Corona ... it was different. Of course, like everywhere else, there were deniers. No one from the ranks of the labyrinth was one of them. There was no denying what had ravaged the homeless like a grim reaper, costing children their parents and parents their children. Victims that no one saw and that no one wanted to be reminded of now that the virus was "over". Fun Fact- A virus was NEVER completely over, viruses cannot be eradicated, at most they can create new variants and survive in other hosts. And nobody wanted to risk getting too close to the carrier of a new variant.

"Okay, enough staring," Michael said, pulling the two winged cat people onto the narrow platform in front of the door.

"I'll go to him. If I'm closer, maybe I can smell what's wrong with him. You stay here."

He pushed the hatchling into Falk's arms, zapped open the door to the next carriage and stepped into the compartment. He ignored the rising heads of the other people as he always ignored anything that wasn't a danger to him or his kind. He walked over to the man who didn't raise his head when he got to him. He heard him gasp in pain.

"Hey. Hey, Buddy."

No response. Only now did he smell that over the gargoyle odor that had seeped into his memory since infancy lay pain and fear and regret so thick that it masked even the stench of the humans.

Michael crouched down in front of the man. The man, the hanging dreadlocks dangling down around his head shading his face, looked at him for the first time, his eyes wide and almost panicky- perhaps not quite oriented. The upper cartilage of his left ear was crooked and frayed - something you couldn't see immediately through the hair. He was thin and not tall even up close, but his ice-blue glazed eyes were distressing. As if they were looking straight through you to your inner self.

Micheal swallowed. This guy was apparently suffering from patch poisoning. Not that he had much experience with it, but for someone who had three uncles who, even after 25 years of training, were still a bit ... simple-minded and who all three refused to have their patches removed at regular intervals (because a street food festival, a trip to Mini Golf or an evening at Luna Park on Coney Island just couldn't end yet), he'd seen enough. And this unknown gargoyle - perhaps from the student exchange - was trapped in here without a fellow species. In a metal tube without cell phone reception full of humans where he couldn't get relief by transforming back. And as a human he wouldn't be strong enough to break down the doors and for minutes he probably wasn't capable of any higher thoughts except the urge to survive the next painful breath. But soon his body would break out fighting the spell in a desperate attempt to survive and the metamorphosis secret of the Gargoyle race would be revealed. Michael could not let that happen.

He leaned close to the man so that he backed away, but the light from the overhead lights made him whimper and close his eyes.

"Hey, what are you doing?" another man with a stocky boxer's build asked, sitting opposite them and eyeing Michael in a way that threatened not to fuck up because otherwise-.

Michael smiled - he really appreciated moral courage, even if this was directed at the wrong person. Still on his knees, he showed the emblem with the bat wings wrapped around a heart.

"I know him," he lied practiced. "He's part of our community. I'll take care of him."

He leaned back towards the man who was staring at him between his fingers, now almost in a convulsive breathing as if his migraine was about to kill him.

"I'll help you, I know you're a gargoyle," Michael whispered.

The man pinched his lips into a thin line and shook his head violently, but the way his hand twitched towards his arm was treacherous. At least he still understood words.

Michael touched him on the arm and shrank back from the intense heat he radiated. He was less familiar with this from his uncles - but everyone reacted differently to patch poisoning.

"I belong to the Labyrinth Clan, you've been wearing your patch too long. I'm getting you out of here."

With a resounding feedback, the blaring voice sounded from the speakers on the ceiling, announcing that the train would be moving again soon. But Michael didn't know if the guy in front of him had that much time. The man had already crouched down at the first sounds and pressed his hands over his ears. His head must nearly explode. The vibrating but shrill whimper he emitted could hardly be called human - perhaps the first glitches in the magic. Michael grabbed the man and pulled him to his feet. He groaned, trying to struggle away from him, speaking for the first time choppy fragments of words that sounded like "No. Brother. Help."

"All right, all right," Michael cooed. God, the guy's hot damp clothes were almost steaming - the guy himself was almost steaming. And you could almost slip off his skin it was so wet.

"Didn't you hear that it's about to move on," the boxer said again.

"Exactly - the train is about to move on. They can help him at the next station," a woman intervened. She had stood up and was staring at him just as defiantly as the other passengers. Well - how did that look here? One man - tall, young, strong - was trying to drag away another - older, thin, ill and disoriented and clearly unwilling to come along.

"He's claustrophobic - and he is so now! I'll drag him to the next station right now. Why don't you sue me if you don't like it? Come on, friend."

"It's forbidden to get out of a train in the middle of the tunnel," said an older man with an academic's forehead, emboldened by the courage of the others. Michael looked at him coldly, intending to let a spark of electricity flare in his eyes, maybe even show slit pupils. Then the boxer grabbed him by the collar of his jacket.

"You leave the man alone and he'll be at the next station -" he began, when a small orange and black tabby body jumped at him. The guy shrieked shrilly and fell back onto his bench while Falk jumped onto the metal bar below the ceiling from which the handles were dangling. He hissed at the horrified man.

"You're not touching him!" growled the child.

Suddenly Cat was perched on Michael's shoulder - he was so used to it that he didn't even flinch, just cocked his head to one side and tolerated the cat's claws digging into his jacket while the girl arched her back inhumanely. "Exactly - we're taking the sick human with us! He's with us!"

"Us!" chirped Vincent from the ground, almost as cat-humped and spitting sweetly as he hissed in a feline manner.

Michael couldn't have been prouder but didn't want to linger because several people had already pulled out their cell phones and he and the children were wearing their bracelets but the strange gargoyle maybe not.

"So you heard. He's in good hands," said Michael, re-arranging the smaller, slimmer man in his arms and literally dragging him out of the compartment.

.

.

As soon as they got out of the carriage, the train began to move. The faces of the passengers slowly slid past them. Cat and Falk - true to the maternal side of their family - flipped them each the stinky finger twice.

Michael would have mini-zapped them both for it if he hadn't had his arms full and was in a hurry to put the human down at the side of the tunnel as soon as the train with their spectators was gone.

"Okay, buddy. I'll put you down here - god you're hot, what's wrong with you? Strip him- we need to find the patch and get it off."

He rubbed his hands together, having almost burned himself on the glowing hot, disguised gargoyle. The children swarmed around him and Michael had barely given a warning about the unusual heat when they were already cutting the buttons off his shirt with their cat claws, freshly extended from their finger tips, and searching his pockets at the same time. Cat and Falk in particular would make fantastic thieves, and Vincent was pretty much imitating his older siblings anyway.

"Here's his cell phone!"

"And I've got his wallet. What are those weird silver pucks in his pockets - are they sweets?"

"Leave them to him." Michael- reluctant to drop his human shell entirely but unhappy with the near-total darkness in this tunnel, instructed Cat to light herself up. The soft sparkle and crackle of unfettered electricity made her fur stand up on her forearms and face before thin, cold white threads of energy appeared, dancing across her creamy white black-dotted pelt and illuminating that part of the tunnel.

"What's his name?" Michael asked, his eyebrows creasing with concern as he saw that the strange gargoyle not only had a nosebleed by now and his pupils were the size of pins, but that he was staring at Cat, Falk and especially Vincent, who had just opened his shirt and was looking at his steaming chest for patches, as if they were ghosts. Michael knew it was hard to tell what was going on in the mind of a patch-poisoned person. Uncle Hollywood had once tried to drink the East River dry after five hours of Patch because he was convinced the fish were laughing at him.

Falk flipped open his wallet, his pupils narrowing to a slit even as Kat lit up the area with her electricity.

"Na-tahniel Sha-rif? Funny name."

"No more than Mayhem-Styles," Michael muttered but understood what Falk meant. The Manhattan Gargoyles had given themselves their names in 1994 in honor of their new home. Gargoyles from ... more naturally grown clans usually had normal human names or were named according to physical characteristics or had naming ceremonies in which they were named by the elders as best suited to their soul and nature. But Nathaniel Sharif? Who called himself that? Who was so named (after what inner self or physical feature - it was completely meaningless)? The first name like that of a butler - the last name ... somehow - did it come from the Middle East?

"It says here he lives in Brooklyn," stated Falk and handed Michael the ID, which he only now saw was an American one. He scanned the ID in disbelief - the picture showed the human he saw in front of him! What kind of gargoyle made an ID card that showed him as a human - that was insane!"

"Bloody hell, that's freaky," he muttered, patting the stranger on the hot cheek perhaps a little more roughly than intended.

"Do you understand me? What's your cell phone pin? Who can we call if we have a bar?"

His icy blue eyes locked on him and - if that was possible, and yes it was possible - became even wider, truly terrified.

He snarled in a gargoyle-like threatening gesture that looked absolutely desperate and tried to crawl away backwards.

"Wonderful," Michael grumbled. "Don't panic uhm- Nathaniel. I'm not going to hurt you. Peel off your plaster - you'll feel better. Where is it? On your arm?"

He tried to reach for the man, but he hissed and struck at him with a hand that had no claws. Michael grabbed his wrist, striking the same stern tone that he gave to rioting underground labyrinth inmates who were completely intoxicated with drugs, making them obey him.

"Pull yourself together! We'll help you!" The supposed gargoyle snapped at him - its human teeth just a few inches from his nose. An animal in a trap - no trace of sentient consciousness left to work with.

Michael turned to the children. "He can't think anymore, I don't know if he understands what we want, find the patch! Don't get burned, but find it!" Michael pulled Nathaniel's upper body up - despite the first-degree burns caused by the snarling non-gargoyle on his palms. The children's little fingers - a little more protected by gargoyle hide and fur- ripped his shirt open at the back and arms, flew over his back, over his arms as the guy squirmed in Michael's grip. Then Michael watched in horror as human teeth retracted to make way for fangs, human eyes lit up unnaturally ice-blue and his face seemed to deform as he tore open his mouth and howled in pain from the forced transformation. And at the same time, lava seemed to rush through the veins of the creature before them - glowing red fire, a spider web over its unnaturally discolored skin.

"Quick! The spell is breaking!" Micheal shrieked.

"GOT IT!" shouted Falk, pulling something from the man's arm, and Micheal kicked him away from himself and the children barely a blink of an eye before the guy burst into flames!

The kids shrieked, seeking cover behind him and Micheal could do nothing but whirl around, grab his siblings and run.

But the thing - whatever it was - didn't follow them. Its howls and gargoyle screeches echoed through the tunnel but the glow of its fire dimmed the further Micheal ran. And then, in quick succession, there were four loud ... Banging sounds. It didn't sound like gunshots - as New Yorkers, they knew that sound too well ... but as if something had gone off. As if ... all the popcorn in the bag had gone up at once. And then - silence. Michael stopped and turned around. A hundred yards down the tunnel, the creature they had mistaken for a gargoyle lay almost motionless, also wheezing and wailing. The slightly glowing spider web of veins covering his wings (yes, wings - but a gargoyle?) still bathed the surrounding area in soft light. What was that white foam covering him?

All gasping with adrenaline, Michael let the children slide down him.

Vincent whimpered behind Michael's heels.

"In a minute, sweetheart," Michael comforted him, staring at the figure.

"What is that thing?" asked Cat.

"I don't know."

"Gargle," Vincent said, somehow cranky from hunger, fatigue, stress and fear.

"A gargoyle doesn't burn."

"The white foam put it out," Falk noted.

"We should call Talon," Cat said, pulling out her phone-one of the models that worked underground through wide-range subterranean transmitters developed by Lexington but could only be used by creatures that could generate electricity because the power consumption of these things was abnormal.

Michael sighed. "First we have to get him out of this tunnel - the next train is coming in five minutes and he'll either get flattened or derail the train. He... seems to have really cooled down. You stay here ... I'll try ... pull him into the side tunnel we ran past."

He walked back towards the strange creature, which - the closer he got - really looked like a gargoyle. Elegant horns swung over its wild dreadlocks and its wings rose and fell along with its whimpering sounds of fear and confusion. He was covered from chest to lower legs with foam dripping from him. The remains of his shirt and pants had fallen off his body except for a few shreds, but his boxers were still intact.

Three meters away from him, Michael crouched down. Far enough away to be able to jump away if - anything happened.

"Hey Buddy," he said softly, but the gargoyle cocked its head, flashed its eyes and raised its wings threateningly. His snarl caught in his throat as he tried to back away but slipped on the white foam and then simply crouched on all fours and glared at Michael.

"Damn, the involuntary metamorphosis has damaged your brain good," Micheal whispered to himself and then immediately went into purring kindergartener mode. "Okay, okay. Be a good boy. Nathaniel." The glowering gargoyle pricked up his ears - one of them frayed like that of his human version. "Yes- Nathaniel. That's your name. A great name. I am Michael. I don't want to hurt you. I'm a really nice guy. Can you see that?" He pointed to his jacket where the embroidered emblem was. "You see the wings - a bit like yours. Around the heart? We're the good ones. I'll be nice to you, but you have to come with me and stop burning- okay?"

He stretched out his arms and the gargoyle crouched on the ground and hissed- Micheal knew how a cornered animal reacted. He would have to zapp him out cold to be able to touch him. Then he felt someone behind him. And Vincent appeared next to him - also on all fours as usual. The strange gargoyle's eyes widened when he noticed the little hatchling

"Vinnie, stay back," Micheal said, grabbing Cat and Falk, who were also trying to get past him, by their wings.

Vincent, on the other hand, pushed himself closer to the stranger, his body lowered, his wings folded, his tail swinging back and forth gently and with little agitation. The little one pointed at himself without taking his eyes off Nathaniel.

"Gargle!" his high-pitched voice exclaimed. Then he pointed at the blue-skinned fellow, who looked at him, puzzled but somehow curious. "Gargle too! No afraid. Friend. Brother."

The blue-skinned gargoyle stared at Vincent, swallowed, then opened one wing and chirped uncertainly, almost fearfully.

His youngest brother lifted his upper body from the ground, tilted his head inquiringly - and chirped too - before crawling to him and under his wing. And as soon as he was there, they both began to purr and chirp as if they were really having a conversation - which they did or did not. Micheal had no idea - had never seen adult, original gargoyles communicate like this before, but it seemed to at least reassure the stranger as the soft orange glow radiating warmth on his wings faded away. While the adult maybe-gargoyle and his brother felt their wings and faces and patted and brow-nudged each other, Cat sighed like the girly she was.

"Ohhh- we cute- both like hatchlings," she whispered.

"Those pure gargoyle instincts are rather creepy," Michael muttered, feeling like pulling Vincent away from this ... thing that had almost barbecued them.

He was about to give Cat further instructions when everyone (even he -damn him!) raised their heads, human, cats and gargoyle ears pricked up as tiny claws darted across concrete and tracks. Everyone saw and recognized the small but juicy-looking body of a rat disappearing into a side tunnel. Michael jumped to the side as Vincent and, immediately after him, the adult but currently mentally impaired gargoyle disappeared into the same tunnel and the twins rushed to follow. He only managed to catch Falk.

"Fine! Go on a rat hunt with the life-threatening fire gargoyle. But keep him away from the main tunnels - and herd him near one of the sewer ducts to the Hudson river where we have reception all around." Falk made an approving grunt before he slipped away from him and hurried after the other "kids".

Michael groaned in annoyance. "Great! Sure, then I'll call Dad!" he said at a frustrated high volume into the void of the tunnel.

Would normal people freak out after what just happened? Probably. Or have their siblings run off with that thing? Probably not. He wasn't just numb to the sheer madness. He had never known anything else and madness was normal for him and the others. This was his life. And it had all begun when a handful of people had trusted mad scientists and billionaires too much.

"And Brooklyn too, because whenever some crazy shit happens, the Manhattan gargoyles have something to do with it!" he added grumpily.

Yay - new figures! But not only OCs! I'm the FIRST! to include Michael Peter Maza in their story (read the comics or search for him on Gargwiki). What is he in the year 2023? If he was born on May 14, 1997, he'll be (god, I'm old) he'll be 26.

Unfortunately, I don't plan on showing THAT much of the Terror twins and Vincent. He's four - so two Gargoyle years old but considering that Gargoyles hatch and are at about the two year old developmental stage and at least learn to crawl and scamper quickly he may be just under four years old in our minds. His language ability is not the best. Not because the lack of programming of his fathers/father has jumped over to him - because it is just programming and not a real hereditary brain damage) but simply because he does not talk much. Don't try to find a logical maturation order in the eggs of the LabyrinthClan like every twenty years fertilization, ten years in the egg blabla. As I said, this is shortened by the human DNA, more irregular and different for each egg - only after hatching do the children age like normal gargoyles because they then petrify.

Thanks for reading, Q.T.