Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters or locations from Gargoyles, those belong to their owners.
Author's note: This story takes place the summer following "The Journey", and though it ignores the comic's continuity, I'm using Fang's real name, revealed in Bad Guys #2.
Chance Meetings
Chapter 43
by Remtar85
It was a calm, cloudy late night as Detective Elisa Maza waited in her car outside a 24 hour mini-market. It had been relatively quiet and peaceful lately, and she relished the lack of the recurring enemies of the Manhattan Clan around, leaving her to handle her usual kind of work for the NYPD. After dealing with the likes of Demona, Thailog and the Pack on a constant basis, any time not having to deal with them and instead dealing with the more typical criminal lowlifes was an actual relief for Elisa.
Moments later, Elisa's partner, Matt Bluestone, came out of the mini-market, a take-out coffee cup in each hand. Reaching over to the passenger side door, Elisa opened it for him. Matt got in and handed Elisa one of the two cups, which she took and wasted no time sipping out of.
"That hits the spot," she commented with a sigh and a smile.
"These long nights can really get to you," Matt said, taking a swig of his own coffee.
"Sometimes it's not the nights so much as the people," Elisa said, sounding more annoyed than tired. "Margot's ranting gave me one serious headache. I couldn't get out of the station fast enough."
Matt winced as he remembered that little scene from earlier. Ever since the Gargoyle Task Force had been established, with Matt being the head of it and Elisa a member, their only other female member was completely anti-gargoyle and very vocal about it. Assistant District Attorney Margot Yale had been assigned to the Task Force, mainly by the Mayor, and she never missed an opportunity to critique the rest of her Task Force colleagues as well as the gargoyles they had been formed to combat. The Task Force had started out as a part-time thing while budget was being discussed, but overtime, a budget had been assigned and the Task Force was now on-call at any possible time, especially as the Quarrymen had become more prominent in the city. Captain Maria Chavez saw the Quarrymen as unsanctioned citizens trying to take the law into their own hands by hunting the gargoyles, and she had made it clear that she wanted the Task Force to be on the alert and ready to spring into action, to arrive at the scene of any gargoyle sightings and the like before the Quarrymen could; she refused to let what amounted to masked vigilantes have their way.
The Task Force had been officially running for over a year now, and they had had successes. They would be able to drive off the gargoyles and protect the citizens from them. Of course, both Matt and Elisa knew more than well how kind and benevolent the gargoyles were (with the exception of Demona and Thailog), and they worked things out with subtlety, making sure that the Task Force never actually hurt or apprehended the gargoyles without anyone being any the wiser, which was the cause of Margot's tirade. She had been ranting about what number of atrocities the gargoyles might have committed during Halloween and after, and the Task Force had not been called once.
"I swear, the whole clan could get in front of her and give her passionate speeches about their culture and how they protect people because it's their nature, and she'd still call them brainless beasts," Matt complained, to which Elisa nodded in agreement. "She'd probably compare them to parrots, imitating human speech."
"Some people just can't be helped, unfortunately," Elisa added, taking a sip of their coffee, then smiled. "I'm glad we at least swayed Morgan in the opposite direction, thanks to Hudson."
"Not to mention the added bonus of seeing Margot so pissed," Matt commented, which got them both chuckling.
They vividly remembered a certain scheme they had concocted to display that the Task Force had been making some progress and to keep them running. On a night when a few of the Manhattan Clan had stepped in to subdue a bunch of gang-bangers making a mess at Central Park and mugging and assaulting people, the Task Force had been called. While the police took care of keeping both civilians and Quarrymen away, as well as taking in the gang-bangers that the gargoyles had subdued, the Task Force pursued the gargoyles, eventually cornering Hudson inside a maintenance shack, as he had found no high ground to take off into the sky. At gunpoint, the gargoyle had been put into heavy-duty shackles and kept inside the shack, and Officer Morgan Morgan had been left keeping an eye on him while the rest of the Task Force searched for the rest of the clan, who by then had given them the slip.
As they waited, Hudson engaged Officer Morgan in conversation, and they found themselves bonding over catching criminals and also TV shows they both enjoyed. Eventually, Morgan got called over by Matt to assess the situation, as the rest of the Task Force arrived, including Margot, who seemed pleased as punch at the prospect of a captured gargoyle, only for her happiness to devolve into an angry tirade upon finding the gargoyle gone, the shackles undone and left behind on the floor. This was courtesy of Matt, who had slipped Hudson the keys to the shackles well beforehand so he could slip out after Morgan had been called over. The plan had been a success as it displayed that, other than Hudson escaping, the Task Force was well prepared to engage gargoyles, and it resulted in the very welcome added bonus of Morgan confiding in Matt that, after having talked to Hudson, and seeing all the crooks the gargoyles kept catching, he now firmly believed that gargoyles were good.
Elisa and Matt continued to drive leisurely after enjoying a good laugh and good coffee. It wouldn't be long till they could punch out for the night, with Matt looking forward to relaxing at home and Elisa wanting to spend time with Goliath. However, they saw those plans dashed as Elisa's communicator sparked to life. She was currently not wearing it, keeping it in her jacket's pocket, but she had set the volume to max for any possible emergencies, and Brooklyn's frantic voice came from it.
"Elisa! Elisa, are you there? You need to pick up!"
Slightly startled, Elisa parked her car at the side of the road and took the communicator. She brought the mic up to her mouth to speak while keeping the earpiece in her hand so Matt could hear as well. "Brooklyn, what's wrong? What happened?"
"Quarrymen!" Brooklyn exclaimed; it sounded like he was running. "In Daniel's apartment! Fang's there, he was sleeping in Daniel's room, then some Quarrymen appeared out of nowhere! They're trying to kill Fang, and Daniel's caught in there with them!"
"Oh, Jesus," Elisa muttered under her breath, then spoke clearly and firmly. "Matt and I aren't far from there. We're on our way, and we'll be in touch."
"I'll let the rest of the clan know," Brooklyn told them. "Over and out."
"How did those Quarrymen figure out Fang would be there tonight of all nights?" Matt asked as Elisa turned on her car's roof mounted police beacon light as well as the siren, then took off swiftly in the direction of Daniel's apartment building. Matt had never actually met Fang but knew of the entire situation thanks to Elisa.
"I have no clue, but we have to get there fast. I don't want to think what could happen to Daniel and his family, caught in the middle of those Quarrymen and Fang," Elisa commented as she kept her eyes on the road and dodged cars with skilled precision.
"I'll call in the rest of the Task Force," Matt said, reaching for the radio in Elisa's car to connect back to headquarters. "With civilians caught in the middle, we'll need all the help we can get."
"Shit!"
It was the only thing Fang could say, as he managed to roll to the side just a split second before the hammer came down. The hammer struck where Fang's head had rested a moment before, and the impact was so strong that a deep dent on the floor was now barely masked by the pillow Fang was using. And before the mutate could get up, the Quarryman struck again, swinging down, and it was all Fang could do to get back flat on his back, put his arms and hands up and just barely manage to grab the hammer by the handle to stop its descent, the heavy hammerhead just a few inches from the mutate's face. The Quarryman struggled to yank his hammer out of the cougar-man's grip, but Fang was too strong, and with a snarl, he yanked his arms downwards, sending the Quarryman flying and crashing onto the wall by Daniel's bed.
"Daniel!" Fang shouted as he got to his feet, but his son was not in bed. "Daniel?!"
Fang quickly bolted out of the room, as the bedroom door now stood wide open, and he caught a glimpse of a second Quarryman trying to exit the apartment with Daniel in his grasp; the door stood wide open, indicating that the Quarrymen had somehow just let themselves in. The Quarryman was big, holding Daniel with one arm around his torso and the other covering his mouth, the boy struggling futilely to free himself.
"Cut that out, kid!" the Quarryman exclaimed. "I'm tryin' to help you! We gotta get you away from that freak!"
"What's going on?!"
It had been right as the Quarryman had been talking that the door to the other bedroom in the apartment opened and there stood Carmen in a robe. She gasped, eyes wide open in shock at the sight of her son in the grasp of a large, hooded man. But Fang reacted well before she did, and with eyes glowing bright white and a snarl emanating from deep down his throat, he surged forward, grabbed the Quarryman's arms before he could head out of the apartment's open door, and started squeezing.
"Let. Him. Go!" Fang growled out each word with firmness and fury, squeezing the Quarryman's arms harder with every word, till the man was reduced to crying out in pain, his grip loosening till Daniel dropped out of his grasp.
Daniel didn't need to be told what to do, rapidly stepping to the side and against the wall. With his son out of the way, Fang snarled once again. He let go of the Quarryman's arms, grabbing him now by the shirt and the belt area of his pants. Lifting him above his head with ease, the cougar-man then forcibly threw the man out the open door, where he slammed against the wall and fell to the floor with a grunt.
"And stay out!" Fang shouted at the now semi-conscious Quarryman.
"That was a Quarryman!" Carmen exclaimed, then shot a sharp glare at Fang. She didn't need to say anything for Fang to understand that she was furious, that this is what she had been afraid would happen if he kept going to their apartment, on top of the fact that he had been there without informing her of his presence.
"There's another one of them still in my room!" Daniel told his mother. "I saw him when that one in the hall grabbed me out of my bed!"
"Damn," Fang snarled, doing his best to ignore Carmen glaring daggers at him; he had a much more pressing issue at hand. "Quarrymen are always in groups. I gotta get ouAAAAAAAGH!"
Fang's sentence was interrupted by a sudden blow from behind that sent him sprawling to the floor in pain. Both Daniel and Carmen yelped in surprise, and as Fang fell, they saw the Quarryman that had been in Daniel's bedroom standing over Fang, his hammer alight with electricity, having had just struck the mutate on his back.
"Carmen, take Daniel and get out of here," the Quarryman spoke. "I'll take care of this freak."
"No, don't!" Daniel shouted. He went to kneel by Fang's side, wanting to help his father get up, but the Quarryman instead touched his hammer to Fang's back, making the mutate scream as electricity that was not his own shocked his body. After more jolts, the mutate slumped to the floor and screamed no more.
In Daniel's panic, he had not noticed a very obvious thing, but Carmen most certainly did, as she stared with wide eyes at the Quarryman. "Richard?!" she exclaimed, reaching at the nearby light switch and turning on the hallway light.
The Quarryman didnt hesitate to remove his cowl, revealing that it was indeed Carmen's husband. "Honey, you really need to take Daniel and run. I can't let this thing get a second wind, and I don't want you two to see me kill it."
"You can't kill him!" Daniel shouted. He clearly was not caring about his stepfather being a Quarryman, and was only concerned with his father's well being.
"Daniel, whatever that thing's told you, you can't trust it," Richard said. "I'm not gonna let it trick you and end up hurting you or your mom."
"No, you've got it all wrong!"
"Richard, what in the hell is this?" Carmen now asked. "Since when are you a Quarryman?!"
"Since July. One night I came home drunk, and I wanted to use the bathroom, but I was disoriented and opened Daniel's door by mistake and I saw this monster sleeping in there. I was too scared to do anything back then, so I went to the Quarrymen. They helped set my life straight."
"Set your life straight? You mean when you stopped drinking?" Carmen asked, stunned at the revelation, while Daniel was trying to get the unconscious Fang to wake up.
"Yes," Richard confirmed, smiling at his wife. "They got me sober, then they trained me to fight, get in shape so I could take care of this gargoyle that kept sneaking into Daniel's room, and one of them even pulled some strings to help me get that promotion at work. I was all ready one night, especially after hearing that a bunch of gargoyles were around the building that same night, like they were waiting to meet with this one. I didn't see this one again after that, but I looked into Daniel's bedroom every night after he'd go to sleep, because I figured it might come back, and I was right. But now I'm making sure it doesn't put either of you in danger. Now come on, take Daniel outside while I kill it, before it wakes up."
"You can't kill him, he's not a bad guy!" Daniel said, now sounding quite angry. He had to put in a lot of self control to keep from referring to Fang as his father, as he knew that would open a whole other can of worms.
Carmen's expression then changed, from stunned to angry. "Why would you not tell me you joined the Quarrymen? And now you bring a stranger and weapons into our home, into my son's bedroom! Have you gone crazy?!"
"Carmen, honey, there's no need to worry," Richard tried to appease her. "I didn't tell you because I was afraid that this gargoyle could catch wind of it. If it had, it could've hurt Daniel or you. But now we can kill it before it hurts anyone."
"You had some stranger manhandle my son while you were swinging some electric hammer near him!" a now enraged Carmen shouted. "What the fuck is wrong with you?!"
"What's going on?"
Carmen, Daniel and Richard all turned to the open doorway as a voice called out, and saw that a few other tenants had gathered after hearing the commotion. Some were looking into the apartment, others looking at the Quarryman out in the hall who was getting back to his feet, though still wobbly and trying to regain his balance. But then the neighbors noticed the winged, furry being on the floor, and there was a collective gasp.
"What the hell?"
"Is that a gargoyle?"
"Oh my God, a gargoyle got into the building!"
The neighbors were starting to exacerbate an already tense scene, and none of the people in the apartment liked it one bit. Daniel especially was terrified, as his father had been found out by the Quarrymen, one of them being his stepfather who was now adamant on killing the mutate, and now even people from other apartments had seen Fang. Things seemed like they couldn't get any worse and Daniel's mind was frantic, not knowing what to do as he continued to kneel by the mutate.
Before Carmen could do anything, Richard reacted first, putting his cowl back on and addressing the neighbors, as his companion outside finally regained his footing. "People, please, this gargoyle is dangerous. I need you all to calm down and go back to OOF!"
Nobody saw it coming, and a few people gasped and yelled in surprise as Fang suddenly kicked upwards and connected, hitting Richard away from him. It was clear to Daniel and Carmen that the mutate had pretended to be unconscious and waited for the right moment to get Richard away from him. As Richard fell back, his hammer fell from his grasp, and Fang rose and ran back into Daniel's bedroom. He rushed to the window and tried to get through it to the outside. As he was squeezing through, a sudden bright flash caught his eye, followed instantly by an intense pain on his left arm that made the cougar-man scream and curse quite loudly. More flashes caught his eye as he backed up again into the bedroom, and he realized that more Quarrymen were outside, having been waiting to snipe him out with laser rifles. He was lucky that it was only his arm that got hit.
"Dad, are you okay?" Daniel came into the room, quickly stuffing his feet into his pair of sandals. "We have to get you out!"
"But how can he get out?" Carmen asked as she also entered the room. "We don't know how many Quarrymen are out there."
Adrenaline started to set in and Fang ignored the pain on his arm and on his back. He knew now that he had no choice but to go into the building itself and find another way out, be it via the rooftop or go down into the streets. Before he set off, he saw his gym bag next to Daniel's bed and immediately picked it up, having forgotten about it. He didn't want anyone to get it, especially because he had a couple of his transfiguration potions in there. But as he was set on leaving the room, he saw Richard was back on his feet, hammer in hand. Daniel saw him too and immediately rushed out of the bedroom and latched on to his stepfather's waist to try hindering his movements.
"C'mon, get them out and away from this gargoyle!" Richard screamed, and Fang and Carmen then saw Daniel yanked off of Richard by a pair of gloved hands, signaling that the other Quarryman was trying to take Daniel away once more.
"Lemme go!" Daniel shouted as he got dragged away.
"Tu suelta a mi hijo ahora mismo, cabrón!" Carmen screamed at the Quarryman, running out of the bedroom. Were the situation not as distressing, Fang would have had a good laugh, because Carmen spoke fully in Spanish only when she was at her happiest or at her angriest, and he knew that that Quarryman was really gonna get it if he didn't let go of Daniel. If not by Carmen, then by Fang himself, because the mutate's rage was intensifying by the second.
With Daniel off him, Richard now stood at Daniel's bedroom door and faced against Fang, electric hammer at the ready. "You're gonna regret coming in here and putting my family in danger, you goddamn freak."
"Your family?" Fang growled, eyes glowing white, putting his gym bag on Daniel's bed. "Man, you're so fuckin' clueless..."
"That's it! I'm puttin' you down!" Richard screamed as he charged at Fang. He swung his hammer at the mutate, who side-stepped easily and grabbed at it, but before he could yank the hammer out of the man's grasp, Richard swung a fist and landed a solid hit on Fang's face, then a knee to the mutate's stomach that made him double over, followed by another knee to the face that made Fang stumble backwards. It was clear that Richard really had been training and learning to fight. Unfortunately for him, this only made the adrenaline charged Fang angrier, and the mutate regained his footing, roared and smacked Richard in the face with his open palm, sending him down to the ground.
Fang reached down to the hammer, turned its electricity off and threw it out the open window onto the fire escape. Then he reached for a dazed Richard's wrists, grabbing them firmly and pulling him up by them as he stood straight, looking down at the Quarryman with disdain. "Y'know, your wife is right. You brought weapons into Daniel's room, with him sleeping right there. You could'a gotten him hurt, you shit. And that really pisses me off!"
Fang then gave a hard squeeze on both of Richard's wrists, and he heard bones break, followed by Richard's ear-piercing scream of pain. Knowing that the man was no longer a threat, Fang dropped him, then grabbed his gym bag, hung it over one shoulder and bolted out of the room, then out into the hall. The neighbors had all returned to their apartments, but most of the doors were slightly ajar and Fang could see people peeking out, though most of them instantly shut their doors at the sight of him. His mind quickly went through escape possibilities; there were two sets of stairs and one small elevator in the building. Figuring that taking the elevator would just leave him boxed in and with nowhere to go if any Quarrymen were waiting by elevator doors on the lower floors, the stairs were clearly the way to go.
Each set of stairs was located at each end of the hallway. And at one end of the hallway and by the stairs is where Daniel, Carmen and the Quarrymen now were. Carmen was giving hell to the Quarryman who had been trying to get Daniel out of the apartment, all while the Quarryman kept arguing that he was only trying to help them; he had released Daniel but kept trying to convince them both to vacate the building. Carmen kept a firm grip on her son's arm, not allowing Daniel to return to the apartment for his father, despite how much he desperately wanted to. They were all so focused on each other that they didn't notice the cougar-man approaching. Rushing over, Fang quickly ended the argument by delivering a swift punch to the Quarryman's face before anyone could react to his presence, knocking him to the floor and out cold.
"Dad!" Daniel exclaimed, his relief at seeing his father turning to worry as he noticed a burn mark on his arm. "You're hurt!"
Carmen turned to the mutate, her anger and panic now directed at him. "Dammit, Fred, now what are-"
"Not now, Carmen!" he firmly interrupted her. "I gotta get outta here. They'll probably expect me to try to fly out, so we're going down to the street. Come on, let's go."
"We're not going with you!" Carmen said. "These guys are after you! Daniel already got caught in the middle back there, I'm not letting him get caught up in this any more!"
"Where's Richard?" Daniel asked.
"Later, Daniel," Fang replied firmly, eyes still on Carmen. "Look, I just wanna make sure you two are okay before I bolt outta here!"
"I said no, goddammit!" Carmen held her ground. "Now run away before these people get you killed!"
"Dammit, Carmen, this-"
"Get away from them, monster!" a loud voice interrupted Fang.
The mutate looked as two Quarrymen appeared at the bottom of the stairs. Panicked, Fang turned and started to run down the hall, but only got a few meters when two more Quarrymen appeared from the opposite staircase down the hall. Before Carmen could stop him, Daniel ran right behind his father and now stood next to him. Carmen followed, as did the Quarrymen in the staircase. Each duo of Quarrymen had one wielding a sledgehammer and one with a laser gun drawn, ensuring that both duos could attack the mutate at close or long range, and they now had Fang surrounded.
"Don't you touch those people!" one Quarryman shouted.
"Ma'am, take your son and step away, slowly and carefully," a Quarrywoman spoke gently but firmly to Carmen.
"You so much as touch 'em, I'll shoot you right in the head, freak," a third Quarryman threatened Fang.
"Would you jerks just back off?" Daniel shouted, now less afraid and more angry. "He's not gonna hurt me, or my mom, or anyone!"
"You can't trust some monster, kid," the first Quarryman spoke again.
"Well, you don't know him like I do!" Daniel retorted.
"My son's right," Carmen spoke up now trying to help defuse the situation. "He won't do anything to us. Don't you people think he would've hurt us by now if he wanted to?"
"You never know what those things might be thinking, ma'am," one of the Quarrymen said. "It was probably biding its time to do something nasty to you."
"Mom, I can't leave him," Daniel asked in a low, very worried voice while he held on to one of his father's hands. "What are we gonna do?"
"I don't know, honey," Carmen told her son in an equally low voice. She had the intense urge to grab Daniel and yank him away from this entire dangerous situation, but she knew he'd never want to abandon his father and would fight her every step of the way. They were stuck between a rock and a hard place, and she had no idea what to do, so she tried again to convince the Quarrymen to not attack Fang.
Fang could hear the voices around him. Daniel, Carmen, the Quarrymen, but he was in such a state of panic that he could barely process what they were saying. For all the time he had been free from the Labyrinth after Daniel helped him escape, Fang had not expected it would come to this. He had been surrounded by Quarrymen before, alongside Demona, but back then he had plenty of room to maneuver and fight back. The night he escaped, he had been surrounded by the Manhattan Clan as well as Claw, but he had been in Xanatos's castle, and with Daniel playing the part of a hostage, Fang had an easy escape. This current situation was much worse than those other two. He was trapped indoors, with Quarrymen on both sides, Daniel and his mother right next to him. Any wrong move could cause the Quarrymen to swing their hammers or shoot first rather than risk him doing something. His gaze kept shifting nervously between the two duos of Quarrymen, Carmen and Daniel, the mutate not knowing what to do as Carmen tried and failed to convince the Quarrymen to back off, all while the Quarrymen walked slowly towards him, weapons at the ready, threatening him to not move. And then a voice cut through them all.
"NYPD! Freeze!"
The voice came from behind the two Quarrymen nearest the stairs Fang had been about to take to escape. Said Quarrymen turned, with Fang, Daniel and Carmen looking past them to spot Elisa Maza standing there, gun drawn, a stern look on her face as she kept her eyes on the two hooded figures.
"Detective Maza!" Daniel exclaimed, relieved to see a friendly face in the midst of this situation.
"Yes! Always liked her better than her brother," Fang muttered under his breath. He knew he was nowhere near out of the woods, but with Elisa there, he figured he had a shot of somehow making it out of this one way or another.
The Quarrymen on the other side, however, didn't stop and kept approaching Fang, but then a man appeared behind them, gun also drawn. "Stop right there, Quarrymen," Matt Bluestone spoke in an authoritative voice.
"Oh, thank goodness," Carmen sighed in relief.
"All good there, Matt?" Elisa called out.
"Yeah," Matt responded, then spoke to the Quarrymen again. "I'm Detective Sergeant Matt Bluestone, and that is my partner, Detective Elisa Maza. We're with the Gargoyle Taskforce, and we'll be taking over this situation from here on out. I'm asking you Quarrymen to put your weapons away and vacate the premises."
"We can't do that!" one of the Quarrymen in front of him instantly protested. "We got a gargoyle right there, and it was in that kid's room. It could've hurt him, and it could hurt him and his mom now if we don't do something about it!"
"I already told you morons, he's not gonna hurt us!" Daniel shouted at them, sick and tired of them not bothering to even give him the benefit of the doubt.
"Daniel, calm down and let the detectives handle this," Carmen told her son, a hand on his shoulder to try calming him down, all while Fang kept quiet, his back now pressed against a wall as he constantly shifted glances between the two groups of Quarrymen and the respective detective behind them.
"We're not letting him go," the Quarrywoman near Elisa said firmly. "It could hurt them and a lot of other people."
"We were trained to kill these freaks," the man beside her said. "We have to take it out now!"
"The only thing you have to do is put your weapons down," Elisa said quite firmly. "You have no jurisdiction here, nor any permission from the law to hunt gargoyles. On top of that, you're pointing your weapons at civilians."
"We're pointing them at that gargoyle!" the Quarryman near her retorted, sounding scandalized.
"There's people standing next to him, so technically, you're pointing your weapons at them too," Matt spoke once more. "Put your weapons down and walk away. The rest of the Gargoyles Taskforce is on their way. Now, this gargoyle here doesn't seem hostile, so I'm sure we can convince him to come with us in a peaceful manner."
"Are you kidding me?!" one of the Quarrymen near him shouted.
The Quarrymen were very persistent in their argument over why they couldn't put away their weapons, and the two detectives were adamantly trying to convince them to stand down, lest they make everything worse. Fang was glad for Elisa and Matt's arrival, but was growing increasingly annoyed that the situation had become a stalemate, with him, Daniel and Carmen still caught in the middle. The mutate decided then that he'd have to take matters into his own hands, because even if the detectives somehow managed to get rid of the Quarrymen, Fang didn't trust them to just let him go later, especially if the rest of their Gargoyles Taskforce was on their way. So as each detective was engaged with their respective duo of Quarrymen, and Carmen and Daniel's attention went back and forth between each group, wondering how everything would turn out, Fang suddenly sprang into action. The cougar-man rapidly grabbed his son, scooped him up and started running back where he had come from.
"Whoa!" Daniel cried out in surprise.
The mutate turned sideways as he dashed, protecting Daniel from impact as he barreled through the two Quarrymen, knocking them to the floor. "Move it or lose it, bitches!" he shouted out as he didn't stop running, with Matt barely able to step to the side and avoid getting knocked down too.
"No, stop!" Carmen cried. "Don't take him!"
Fang had no idea what was going on behind him, nor did he care. "Hang on tight, Danny Boy, we're going at this fast."
"Dad, wait!" Daniel said as he had no choice but to cling to the mutate, arms firmly around his neck. "You can't leave Mom behind!"
"It's not her they're after, it's me. She'll be fine," Fang told his son while rapidly going down the stairs as fast as he could without tripping. "Besides, she's with Talon's sister and that other guy, so she's safer than anyone right now."
"Okay," Daniel said, though he was still worried.
Having gone down two flights of stairs, the boy clung to his father as Fang now ran down a hallway to take the other set of stairs, hoping to confuse his pursuers. He was almost to the stairs when two more Quarrymen emerged from it, going up, but stopped at the sight of him. Fang skidded to a halt and cursed under his breath realizing that the ones above must have radioed their comrades.
"There it is! Get the kid away from it and then kill the damn thing!" one of them, a tall and very muscular man, shouted.
"That's the freak that stole one of our hammers months ago, with that female one!" the other one, also a man, pointed out, clearly having been there that night when Fang first encountered them when he was seeking out Demona. "Not gonna get away this time, that's for sure!"
"Oh yeah?" Fang spoke, trying his best to sound brave and confident. "You think you can take my little buddy from me? Go ahead, Danny Boy, you tell 'em."
Daniel, still holding on to the mutate, turned to look at the Quarrymen and didn't hesitate to talk. "I'm not letting go of him and you jerks can't do anything about it."
"You heard him," Fang said with a smug smirk. "So how about you assholes step aside and let us pass? Unless you want the whole city to hear on the morning news that you Quarrymen got a kid hurt."
"You damn freak," one of the Quarrymen said in anger.
"You're not gonna-"
Fang did not wait for the other Quarryman to stop speaking, rather he just barreled through them, knocking them aside. They shouted at him as he fled with Daniel down the stairs, knowing that now he had multiple Quarrymen as well as Elisa and Matt behind them, but on the other hand, he knew that he and Daniel were almost out of the building. And as he was close to the first floor, he got attacked by yet another Quarryman, a woman this time, who aimed for his knees as he cleared the stairs. The cougar-man was barely able to dodge by jumping over her hammer, grateful for his feline reflexes, keeping a firm grip on Daniel as he landed. However, the woman did not stop, and though she was trying to avoid hurting Daniel, she was not relenting on trying to bring Fang down by aiming her attacks at his legs.
"You're going down, freak!" the Quarrywoman shouted, and Fang instantly tensed up more than he already was at the sound of her voice.
"Are you fuckin' kidding me?!" Fang exclaimed in surprise, recognizing her voice; it was Megan, the woman he almost had a one night stand with on Halloween and turned out to be a Quarrywoman. She clearly still held a grudge and then some.
"This time you're not getting away!" she cried, rushing at him once more, sledgehammer held high.
However, before she could swing her hammer, Fang took advantage of her being so angry that she carelessly left her torso exposed, and he swiftly kicked her in the stomach, sending her sprawling flat on her back. "Crazy chick," he growled, running off before anyone else could catch up or come out of nowhere.
"Dad, did you know that woman?" Daniel asked.
"Never you mind, boy!" Fang quickly replied. He already had to deal with trying to escape, and the last thing he wanted was to rehash to his son the fiasco that was his Halloween encounter with that particular member of the Quarrymen.
The mutate and child were now almost to the entrance of the building, but Fang now hesitated. He had not seen any civilians since fleeing the apartment. He knew it was past midnight, but still, he figured he would have seen at least one or two people, but seeing none at all other than Quarrymen as well as Elisa and Matt, made Fang suspect that the Quarrymen were keeping anyone from entering or exiting the building, meaning that there were who knew how many of them lying in wait outside. The cougar-man knew he had a very short time to make a decision before he got overwhelmed by multiple Quarrymen indoors. Either he could exit through the front entrance of the building, or try going out the back, which led to an alley. Deciding to take the risk of going out the back, Fang rushed down the hall leading there, then stopped in his tracks when he spotted two Quarrymen standing guard at the door.
"Shit," he snarled, starting to turn to run the other way.
"Whoa, hey!" the shorter of the two Quarrymen exclaimed. "Boss, wait!"
"We wanna help you!" the taller one added before his companion had even finished talking.
Fang skidded to a sudden halt, surprised and confused by these statements. He looked back at the Quarrymen, as did Daniel, both of them filled with trepidation and doubt. They had no clue what made these Quarrymen say that, but Fang's sharp hearing could make out the sounds of the pursuing Quarrymen he had evaded from the above floors of the building, and Elisa, Matt and Carmen were most definitely hot on their heels as well. Fang had very, very little time to get out of there. He tried to think as fast as he could on what to do next when the two Quarrymen by the backdoor took off their cowls.
"See?" the short one asked; he had a shaved head and a brown mustache. "You can trust us, Boss."
"C'mon, the others can't be far behind," the taller Quarryman, burly and with short brown hair, said to the others, quickly walking outside. His shorter companion followed.
"Holy shit!" Fang exclaimed, following and walking outside with them, the shorter Quarryman closing the door behind them. "It's... you guys!"
"Dad?" Daniel asked. "You know them?"
"Name's Chaz," the taller Quarryman said to the boy as they started walking away from the building. "And that's Lou back there. We know your dad, but we sure as hell didn't know he had a kid."
"You mean from the Labyrinth?" Daniel asked.
"Yeah, they're the ones who were helping me when I tried taking over back then," Fang confirmed. He had also completely forgotten their names, or more accurately, he had never bothered learning them, not that he was going to admit it out loud after they had just offered him a clean getaway. The mutate finally put his son down and now they walked side by side as Chaz looked down the alleyways, sneaking further away from the apartment building.
"I remember you said two guys helped you back then, Dad, and that they also got kicked out of the Labyrinth," Daniel said in a low whisper, knowing that only the cougar-man's sharp hearing would catch his words. "But they're Quarrymen now. Is this okay?"
Fang leaned down as he walked to whisper back to Daniel. "Never expected these two schmucks to become Quarrymen, but let's not look a gift horse in the mouth. We're home free now, Danny Boy."
Lou caught up to them at that moment. "Hey. I just radioed the others, told 'em we didn't see you get out the back, Boss, but that we'd keep a lookout. So they won't come looking for you back here, but that'll only last so long, so we better get you far away enough that you can fly off without anyone seeing you."
"Got it," Fang said with a nod. "I owe ya both big-time. Dunno how you guys got into the Quarrymen, but now I'm glad you did."
"Well, first we had to get ourselves back on track after those damn gargoyles got us kicked out of the Labyrinth," Chaz said as he held up a hand, signaling for the rest to stop as he looked out to the streets; the group heard sirens and saw the red and blue lights illuminating the alley. "We had to go live in a homeless shelter and managed to get odd jobs to make whatever money we could."
"But then everyone found out about the gargoyles, and in came John Castaway with the Quarrymen," Lou continued. "We figured we'd join to at least get some payback on those assholes, but then Castaway pulled some strings, got us good jobs, and now we're doin' real well."
Chaz indicated that the group could move once more, so they pressed on through another back alley, though Daniel followed reluctantly and with a frown. As he had gotten to know and hang out with the Manhattan Clan and the Labyrinth clones and now considered them friends, this conversation was not to his liking whatsoever. He really didn't like being around these two Quarrymen, as he knew what they helped his father do some time back, and knowing that they wanted to kill gargoyles made it worse. Daniel wished his father could get away without their help, but it seemed there was no other way out for now.
"We had heard Rich describe the gargoyle in his stepkid's bedroom, and we knew right away that it was you, Boss," Chaz continued.
Lou nodded. "So we tagged along, hoping we could help you sneak away without the other Quarrymen knowing."
"You guys are the best, seriously," Fang exclaimed with a grin on his face, barely able to believe his luck.
"Dad?" Daniel stopped and spoke out loud. "I can't keep going. I have to go back and meet up with Mom."
Fang was about to protest, but then he thought better of it. "Yeah, you oughta. Those jerks don't know any better, so they might go around telling people that I kidnapped you. Now, I dunno when I'll be able to see you again, but now you know where I live. But even if you can't get there, you let Mal know you wanna come see me and he'll handle it, okay?"
"Okay, Dad. Take care," Daniel said, hugging his father, then he took off in the other direction.
The three waited until Daniel was out of sight before continuing on. Lou went ahead and stood at the corner that led out of the alley opposite of where Daniel had gone. He held his hand out to signal the others to stop. Fang did so, adjusting the strap of his bag on his shoulder, grunting a bit under his breath; now that the adrenaline had worn off, the hammer strike on his back and laser shot on his arm were starting to hurt again. The cougar-man pondered what the next obstacle holding them back was, and figured they'd need to go just a bit further for him to be able to take off unseen before any other Quarrymen caught wind that two of their numbers had been helping their target. As long as they stayed hidden in the alley, escaping should be simple, clean and easy. Fang felt a big sense of relief; Lou and Chaz had never been particularly useful as his cronies in the Labyrinth, other than finding the door that led to a cache of high-tech weaponry, even though that hadn't turned out how Fang hoped. It led to his imprisonment, as well as Lou and Chaz getting exiled from the Labyrinth. Fang never gave it a thought as to where the two had gone or how they'd been doing, but now Fang was glad they had turned up, thinking that they really weren't as useless as he had thought.
"Is the coast clear yet, Lou?" Fang asked.
"Yeah, just about," Lou replied, looking back at Fang.
Fang nodded and started moving forward. And then he felt nothing but pain, as he received a fierce, massive blow to his head from behind. It stunned him, his bag dropping to the floor followed by the mutate falling down on his side. Fang had not seen it coming, had not heard it coming, had not expected it at all, and was now immersed in a painful daze. He could see the blurry form of Chaz, a malicious smirk on his face as he held his hammer, looking very proud of having brought Fang down and leaving him in so prone and vulnerable a state. Lou came into view as he walked over and looked down at Fang just as smugly and maliciously as Chaz did, and Fang could do nothing but groan in pain and fruitlessly try to crawl away. He knew he was at their mercy, or lack thereof, and had no way out. And though it didn't register in his mind at the moment, Fang had never in his life felt so scared, as he watched Lou and Chaz bring their hammers alight with electricity.
To Be Continued...
Author's Extra Note: Hey everyone. Sorry for the length in-between posting chapters. Between my little niece, my work, house chores, errands, friends, among other things, writing has become quite a chore. I try, but often I'm unable to find the time to just sit down and write. I'll still try my best to continue doing so, but chapter postings will continue to be sporadic, though you can bet I'm still adamant about continuing and finishing this fic. As for this chapter, we got some surprises, didn't we? From that guest appearance by Megan, to the return of Lou and Chaz (who are canonically Quarrymen in the comics), to Bluestone finally making an appearance. I hope you all liked what I did with Fang here; mainly, since he's been on a lucky streak for the most part for quite some time now, I felt he needed to be put through the wringer once more, show he can't always be lucky, his bad experience with Megan notwithstanding. Sooner or later it was bound to happen that his sneaking into Daniel's room was going to go bad, and I felt that having it be done via Richard discovering him and joining the Quarrymen was the best way to do so, as well as an explanation for why Richard went from a mean drunk to sober and attentive. Also, I'm sorry for ending another chapter on a cliffhanger once more! I hope it won't take too long for me to post the next so you see what comes out of this dire situation Fang now finds himself in. Thank you all for reading and for your patience in new chapters.