Disclaimer: Kojak, The Angela Clone, and Alexia are the property of KingCobra_582 and shouldn’t be used without my permission. All characters herein that appear in the TV show “Gargoyles” are under the ownership of Buena Vista/Disney Television. The MYSTing characters (Crow, Mike, and Tom) belong to Best Brains, Inc. and were not used here with permission.
Note: A special thanks to Belgarion.
Here it is, the moment you've been waiting for...
A Satellite of Love production in conjunction with Belgarion the Archmage...
Alternate Lives: The MiSTing
Alternative Lives, Part 1
MIKE: I would be king!
CROW: I would be God!
TOM: I wouldn’t be living on this damn satellite that’s for sure!
By King Cobra3 ([email protected])
Author's note: This fic is designed to revolve around Brooklyn as he realizes what it would be like if he had never been born.
TOM: Well we wouldn’t have to endure Brooklyn fic’s for one!
This one is my favorite, and I worked hard on this one, so if you must flame me for it, flame me gently.
(CROW DANCES AROUND, WIELDING A FLAMETHROWER. MIKE SNATCHES IT AWAY.)
Okay? All original characters are mine, and, as such, should not be used without MY permission.
MIKE: So nyah!
Warning: This latest example of my work houses Homosexuality, and Profanity. Rated R.
(CROW BEGINS TO SLAVER IMPATIENTLY. MIKE FINDS A TOWEL AND WIPES OFF CROW'S BEAK.) Down boy.
Castle Wyvern
Manhattan, New York
November 15th, 2001.
TOM: Partly fic-like today with a chance of Brooklyn.
Sailing in at low flight, the clan swooped down low, growling angrily, their faces shining with the white glow that came with their anger, chasing after the man who had the Phoenix Gate.
CROW: My toy! Mine!
The man ducked quickly into the alley behind Mike's Pizza Haven,
MIKE: Gotta love his pizza!
and Goliath growled angrily at the absence of the stranger, then looked at Lexington and Brooklyn, an unfriendly scowl stretching his face.
MIKE: He growls a lot doesn’t he?
TOM: He’s a gargoyle, he’s not supposed to look cute.
"Find him. At all costs!"
CROW He’s got my loincloth!
MIKE: Ten thousand dollars of Xanatos’s money to the one who finds him!
"We're on it, Goliath," Brooklyn replied as he and the smaller Olive skinned gargoyle
MIKE: Since when is "olive" capitalized?
ALL: TYPO!
soared downwards into the alley. The muscular clan leader watched them go, an emotion of fear and dread forming up from his belly and rising through his circulation until it reached his brain.
TOM: It took about an hour to get that far since he’s so big.
CROW: Big how?
(MIKE LOOKS AT CROW WARNINGLY.)
Goliath had wished that he had gone after the Phoenix Gate, instead of sending his weaker acquaintances.
TOM: Oh, so he thinks they’re weak now!
CROW: Some leader he is!
But he had been weak. He had been afraid, as much as he tried to deny it to himself.
CROW: (NELSON MUNTZ VOICE) HA-HA!
Several months ago, 5 years in fact, He had seen a terrible world.
TOM: A world ruled by Al Gore!
MIKE: A world ruled by Hitler!
CROW: A world ruled by ME!
(THE OTHERS LOOK AT HIM FUNNY.)
CROW: What?
A future in which Broadway was
MIKE: Thin?
TOM: Intelligence?
CROW: Evil?
blinded and later killed
ALL: Oooohhh!
by one of Thailog's shock troops.
MIKE: What was so shocking about them?
CROW: They flashed people.
Where Matt and Claw, both aged 40 years, and Bronx had been assimilated.
CROW: We are the Borg. Resistance is futile.
TOM: He says that too perfectly for my comfort.
(CROW LAUGHS CHILLINGLY.)
MIKE: Weren’t they killed in Future Tense?
ALL: Plot hole!
Where Brooklyn, Angela, and Demona had been destroyed. Where Lexington had turned traitor, turning his back on the clan to gain his own twisted and unfathomable goals of wealth and power.
CROW: That’s not unfathomable!
TOM: No, but you are.
MIKE: And you’re twisted.
CROW: Hehehehe.
Goliath, upon waking up, had gotten rid of the talisman, calling up a portal and chucking it into the fiery mist, never to be retrieved by mere mortals who would seek to change the world, for the better or the world.
TOM: It’s always for the better of the world in the beginning.
He thought he had gotten rid of it for good.
ALL: WRONG!
He PRAYED he had gotten rid of it for all eternity.
ALL: DOUBLE WRONG!
But apparently he was wrong.
ALL: DUH!
The Phoenix Gate had somehow resurfaced in the mortal plane, and was now placing the Manhattan Clan, if not the entire world, in dire jeopardy.
TOM: Been there, done that.
MIKE: How many times have they saved the world now?
CROW: Three.
**TWO DAYS AGO * *
CROW: I’m having flashbacks!
"Come on, Lex, try and keep up!" The rust-colored Gargoyle laughed as he twirled and dipped through the Manhattan atmosphere, his wings flapping rapidly as, fifty yards behind him, his smaller friend, flailed his flying squirrel-like wings tiredly.
(EVERYONE LAUGHS AT LEX'S ATTEMPTS.))
"Come on, Brooklyn, I'm getting exhausted. Can't we PLEASE go back to the castle and finish the race tomorrow night?" Lexington pleaded, a faint glimmer of hope echoing in his voice.
Brooklyn laughed. "No way, bro. I could run a marathon with the way I feel!"
TOM: Yeah, steroids will do that to you.
Panting, his tongue lolling out,
CROW: Down doggy!
Lexington decided he had enough and soared downwards to rest for a few minutes. Brooklyn noticed the green shape shoot earthward and flared his wings to soar after him, finding his younger brother sitting on his butt on the roof of Gen-U-Tech, holding his sides and breathing hard. Brooklyn shook his head disdainfully, squatting down to kneel by his associate's side, a sarcastic emblem burning in his eyes.
MIKE: How can an emblem burn in someone’s eye?
CROW: Branding irons! Hehehe.
MIKE: How would you know?
CROW: I’d tell you, but then I’d have to kill you!
"Don't tell me that little game took the wind out of you!"
Still holding his sides, Lexington looked over, unable to speak, and simply nodded.
Brooklyn snorted in contempt. "Let me guess. It also hurt your ribs. Am I right?"
Able to breathe enough to speak, Lexington stammered, "Y-yes, B-Brooklyn..."
TOM: He must be as big as Broadway if he’s that out of shape.
MIKE: Time to start him on the old treadmill.
Sighing in aggravation and pity, Brooklyn glanced behind him at the Castle known as Wyvern which, although it looked so close, was actually so far away,
CROW: (SINGING) So faaar away!…
(MIKE CLAMPS HIS BEAK SHUT.)
then back at his sibling, feeling remorseful for his enforced iron grip on Lexington's involvement in the nightly races the two often had.
TOM: Brooklyn has an iron hand?
CROW: Brooklyn’s an enforcer?
Brooklyn had always won those races, because of his bigger wing span,
TOM: And the daily doses of steroids he takes.
and that suited him just fine. It helped heal somewhat the hole he felt in his soul whenever he saw Angela and Broadway together.
TOM: Can we say murderous jealousy?
CROW: "Murderous jealousy".
TOM: I walked into that, didn’t I.
(CROW GRINS.)
Feeling that hole start to eat at him,
TOM: He’s got an alien in his stomach!
Brooklyn forced his thought to shift back to the lean bat-like creature that he had spent his entire life with
MIKE: And now we know Brooklyn’s true feelings for Lex.
CROW: I thought they were more raunchy.
MIKE: (FROWNS) You’re thinking of other fics. Don’t go there.
CROW: But the warning at the top said—
MIKE: Crow!
and who was breathing easily, his panting lowered to a minimum level. Brooklyn, feeling apologetic, placed his hand on Lexington's shoulder.
"Lex, I'm sorry. Are you okay?"
Blinking quickly, Lex looked up at his life-long friend and smiled, a smile forming on his stocky face.
CROW: Just fine, lover boy! Wanna go again?
(MIKE WHAPS CROW.)
"I'm fine, Brooklyn," was all Lexington would say, putting his hand over Brooklyn's still nestled on his shoulder. Before he knew it, Brooklyn found himself looking into his rookery brother's eyes, thinking thoughts he had never considered before.
MIKE AND TOM: EEWWWW!
(CROW STARTS DROOLING AGAIN.)
An uncertain question forming in his voice, Brooklyn suddenly realized that he was wondering what it would be like to kiss Lex...
(MIKE AND TOM RUN OFF TO THE SIDE. VOMITING SOUNDS ARE HEARD. CROW KEEPS HIS SEAT.)
What?!
Brooklyn shook his head, ashamed at himself for some impetuous thoughts.
MIKE: Good! (RETURNS TO HIS SEAT)
TOM: Shame on you for thinking such things! (DITTO.)
Lexington looked at him, concerned.
"Brooklyn…what is it?"
Brooklyn looked into those large eyes, the eyes that seemed to mesmerize him intensely. "Uh, it’s nothing. I was just thinking about something…"
Before he knew it, Lexington was kissing him.
CROW: Brotherly love! Gotta love it!
MIKE: Crow, you’re sick!
TOM: No, what they’re doing is sick. Crow’s just twisted.
Startled, and yet pleased, Brooklyn wrapped his arms around the smaller gargoyle and kissed back, feeling Lexington’s tonsils with the tip of his tongue
TOM: Damn, how long is Brooklyn’s tongue?!
CROW: Wouldn’t you like to know! (SMIRK.)
TOM: Not really!
(MIKE IS TURNING GREEN.)
and rubbing his talons firmly on Lexington’s buttocks.
MIKE: I really don’t want to see this.
CROW: I do! (SITTING IN HIS OWN DROOL.)
TOM: Since when do you swing that way?
CROW: I don’t. I’m just raunchy.
The Olive garg returned the favor by running his hands through Brooklyn’s flowing white hair, and Brooklyn pulled away, not out of disgust and revulsion, but curiosity.
CROW: Is that a flashlight under your loincloth or are you happy to see me?
MIKE: Crow! (WHAP.)
"Did you hear that?" he looked at his confused and frustrated rookery brother.
Lexington’s bowling ball eyes narrowed as he listened concentrating. "No," he admitted. "Now about us…"
Brooklyn smiled inwardly, longing and sexual desire racing through his veins at the thought of being mates with his rookery brother, but he knew that whatever that strange red flare of red was would have to be checked out right away. His own personal feelings for Lexington would have to wait until later.
CROW: Damn!
MIKE: Good!
TOM: Whew! (LOOKS OVER AT CROW.) Someone needs a towel to clean up that drool.
Brooklyn shook his head again under Lexington’s worried look. "We can discuss this later, Lex," he gently touched that spot between Lexington’s and wing, sending shivers down the smaller clan member’s spine. "after we check out what’s going on."
Lexington sighed happily. "Okay, Brooklyn. You’re the second-in-command, after all."
"Fuckin A I am," the rusted Gargoyle
TOM: Is Brooklyn made of metal?
MIKE: No.
TOM: Then why is he rusted?
CROW: Part of him is metal. (lewd grin)
TOM: You keep out of this!
replied as he spread his wings and took to the skies once again, now starting to feel breathless himself. Whatever it was he had been feeling for Lexington back on that rooftop, it sure as hell felt good. It filled a long buried potion of his imminent life essence, some part of him that hadn’t been surfacing since he was a hatchling and he first discovered the concepts of mates. He had been so excited about finding a female mate back then.
But now he wasn’t sure he wanted to mate with a female. He only knew that Lexington was something he had looked for his entire life,
MIKE: Looked for? He sees him every day!
and until now he had been too blind to notice, seeking companionship in females. First Maggie, then Angie. Every female had scorned him. Had rejected him.
TOM: Poor baby.
Had hurt him emotionally.
MIKE: Waah.
But Lexington hadn’t. Looking back at the Olive brother that was following, Brooklyn thought back.
The two had been friends for as far back as Brooklyn could remember, gliding over the skies of Scotland as hatchlings, riding horses together through the hills, even having fencing lessons in the courtyard, an art which neither of them had really picked up on.
MIKE: Childhood friends. Gotcha.
TOM: That doesn’t make you want to make out with them!
Smiling somberly at these memories, Brooklyn’s attention was diverted by the flash that originated in the alley. He looked behind him. "It’s down there. Let’s go!" The two flailed their wings and landed onto the dirty concrete pavement of the back alley, a creepy sense of doom becoming rapidly evident with each passing second
ALL: Oooooo!
the two friends spent searching for the cause of the freaky light show.
CROW: Pink Floyd’s in town!
"There!"
CROW: Where?
MIKE: There!
CROW: Huh? (LOOKS) (WHAP) Ow!
Brooklyn glanced up, following Lexington’s eager response and looking past his green-tinged talon, which Brooklyn couldn’t help but notice was attractive and yet fierce-looking,
MIKE: Great. Now even his talon is attractive.
at the street bum facing away from them, holding the what looked like the Phoenix Gate over his head. Neither of the gargoyles had seen it themselves but they had heard descriptions of it from Goliath whenever he discussed his voyage through Avalon,
MIKE: Even though they kept it locked up at the clock tower for months.
except they both thought Goliath had gotten rid of it. So what was it doing here?
TOM: Sight-seeing.
No matter.
Brooklyn lunged forward, sailing straight at the man, and landed on his feet in front of the frightened man. Soothing, he raised his claws to calm down the drunken individual. "It’s okay. I’m not going to hurt you," Brooklyn glanced down at the man’s hands. Yep, he was holding the Phoenix Gate all right. "I just want that," Brooklyn addressed him, pointing at the talisman.
The man’s terrified eyes glanced down at the item he held in his hands, an item he was going to sell to buy whiskey, but thought better of it and shoved into Brooklyn’s chest fiercely. "Take it! Just don’t hurt me!" the man pleaded, before he turned and raced off.
Brooklyn watched him go. "Well, that was easy," he smirked.
CROW: Too easy!
MIKE: Huh?
CROW: It’s called foreshadowing.
MIKE: Oh.
Holding the magical property carefully, so as not to drop and smash it, Brooklyn tucked the small object into his loincloth pocket, and looked at Lexington. "Uh, about what happened back there…"
Lexington’s interest was renewed. "Yeah…?"
Brooklyn smiled and hugged the smaller creature, feeling Lex’s arms go around his back as he leaned into the pointed green ear and whispered. "Id like to have a relationship with you Lex."
(MIKE AND TOM GROAN WHILE CROW BOUNCES HAPPILY.)
Lexington grinned happily. Things were already going his way for the first time in a long time. "Really?"
"Oh, yeah," Brooklyn answered suavely. "The only reason I tried to hook up with Angela and Maggie before was because I didn’t want the others to know my secret. Lexington, I’m gay."
TOM: (SARCASTIC.) Gee, ya think?!
He paused, looking down at his younger brother. "I’d like to be gay with you, Lex. Why do you think I went with you almost everywhere you went?"
MIKE: Childhood friendship maybe?
Lexington grinned. Things were starting to look up. He had waited for years to hear Brooklyn say that.
They kissed quickly, then separated. "Let’s go show this to Goliath. He’ll want to know about it."
CROW: I’d like to see this!
MIKE: Don’t go there Crow.
"Us?"
Brooklyn laughed shrilly. "No. The Phoenix Gate, you little twit."
"Don’t call me a twit!"
ALL: TWIT!
"Twit!"
(EVERYONE LAUGHS.)
Laughing, spinning through the skies, heading back to the Castle, Brooklyn and Lexington laughed and goofed around. They had both worn a heavy burden on their shoulders for so long, and tonight they had smashed the burdens and found each other.
Touching down on the courtyard, Brooklyn looked around for the other clan members. "Goliath? Broadway?"
"They’re all out on patrol," they heard a calm yet arrogant voice behind them say and both turned to see David Xanatos standing in the foyer. Brooklyn smirked, his happy mood beginning to falter a little bit.
Xanatos looked down and saw the Phoenix Gate nestled tightly into Brooklyn’s pocket. "I don’t suppose you’d want to give that to me so I can put it in my artifacts room away from prying eyes, now do you?"
MIKE: Why would they want to do that?
Brooklyn’s eyes burned white, but returned to normal as he handed it into Xanatos’s expecting outstretched hand. "Brooklyn, you can't trust him!" Lexington gasped in silent horror as he watched the millionaire walk away into the castle. Brooklyn shrugged at his new love. "He’s proven his worth. He can be trusted. If he couldn’t be trusted, he would’ve smashed us to pieces in our stone sleep, now wouldn’t he?"
MIKE: I think Goliath once said Xanatos likes to dominate rather then destroy…
Lexington nodded. "Yeah…"
Whistling Dixie, happy as a clam,
MIKE: Can clams feel happy?
TOM: Ask one and find out.
Xanatos’ feet stopped in front of the artifacts room door, and the bearded man pushed open the door, stepping inside. Looking around for an empty display case, Xanatos spotted an empty glass door cabinet against the far wall. He smiled.
"Home sweet home, my little Phoenix Gate."
CROW: (As Gate) It sucks! I want my own mansion!
Placing the Phoenix Gate inside, Xanatos locked it up and left, locking the large mahogany door behind him as he exited the room, whistling jovially as he snapped off the lights in the hallway, and disappeared around the corner.
Returning to the courtyard, Xanatos looked up, unimpressed, as the familiar Lavender, Aqua, and Brown shapes touched down, closing their winds around themselves,
MIKE: Winds?
CROW: They all farted.
as they nodded, disgruntled, at their former enemy-turned-ally. Goliath, sensing something was up, stepped forward.
"My instincts are telling me you have something to tell me.
CROW: You’re instincts are telling you right.
You know me well enough to know I always listen to my instincts, Xanatos. What is it?" the clan leader rumbled deep in his massive chest. Xanatos smiled arrogantly as always. Ever the cool one.
CROW: Yeah, it’s kinda like that.
MIKE: This isn’t a soda comercial.
"I have a talisman. A magical talisman. One I thought you’d be very interested in, Goliath. Come with me."
TOM: Why can’t he just come out and say "I’ve got the Phoenix Gate?"
CROW: He’s devious.
Putting his hand on Goliath’s shoulder, the billionaire led his Castle Protector to the Artifact Room and showed him the Phoenix Gate, smiling inadvertently. Goliath growled in anger as he saw it sitting in the trophy case.
The Phoenix Gate, somehow retrieved from the space-time plane.
He didn’t like it, and roared at Xanatos, demanding to know how he had gotten it and why it was here now.
MIKE: He’s gonna blow a blood vessel if he keeps this up.
TOM: He’d have it coming.
Xanatos flinched, but remained as steely as always. "Relax, Goliath. You can thank Brooklyn and Lexington for it. They’re the ones that brought it to me."
Goliath growled, highly pissed off.
TOM: The status quo for him.
Stepping back into the foyer, Goliath stared at Brooklyn and Lexington, his eyes strict and accusing. He beckoned a finger at them. "You two, come with me. NOW."
"We’re in trouble," Brooklyn whispered, swallowing hard. Lexington nodded fearfully.
MIKE: I would call that the understatement of the century.
Inside the Kitchen, listening intently to what the two gargoyles were telling him, unaware they left out the part of their "activity", Goliath watched his second-in-command and his technological clan mates sternly, his arms crossed in front of his chest.
TOM: Did you notice that Cobra seems to capitalize random words like "kitchen"?
"…And that’s what happened," Brooklyn was finishing saying, when the alarms blared. Startled, the transfixed gargoyles looked up as Xanatos rushed into the room panting heavily. "There’s a security breach in the Artifact room…"
TOM: He didn’t even have time to yell at them.
That was all Goliath needed to hear. With a roar,
TOM: Never mind.
CROW: Excitable chap, isn’t he?
the clan leader pushed Xanatos out of the way and stormed out, followed by Brooklyn and Lexington. Xanatos watched them go. He knew they would stop whoever was in the artifacts room.
He hoped anyway.
MIKE: Such faith!
Stamping madly into the stone hallway, blinded by the bright flaring lights and nearly made deaf by the WHEE!WHEE!WHEE! of the alarm system,
CROW: Wee-wee?
MIKE: Don’t you dare!
CROW: Whaaat?
Goliath growled in contempt, peering into the vicinity of the Artifacts Room, searching for the Phoenix Gate frantically, his fears, which had been gnawing away at his insides, were confirmed when he looked and saw, to his own dread.
The Phoenix Gate was gone. The glass door had been destroyed.
Xanatos appeared. "Whoever stole the Gate is long gone. He knocked out all the cameras, and he disabled the silent alarms. Whoever he is, he’s good."
TOM: Xanatos needs to hire a security expert.
MIKE: It’s called plot.
TOM: Is that what it is?
Goliath frowned. "Then why did he not turn off these alarms?"
Xanatos shrugged, befuddled. "Maybe he wanted to make it more challenging. Who knows?"
A few minutes later, the entire clan, minus Bronx, was on patrol, searching for the one who had taken the deadly piece of history. So far they’d had no luck, but that was about to change for the worse.
ALL: Ooohh!
Flying, soaring over the city now, Brooklyn looked down suddenly and pointed. "There!"
Everyone else looked down and saw a cloaked figure racing through the streets, holding something shiny in his pocket. Fortunately, Brooklyn’s eyes were good enough to recognize from a distance that it was the Phoenix Gate and swooped down.
CROW: Actually he’s wearing binoculars.
And now, he and Lexington were in the alley, attacking the shadow who possessed the Gate, fighting with him to get it back, but this man, or creature, or whatever he was, was incredibly strong. Strong enough to hurl Lexington into a wall and knock him out. Enraged, Brooklyn leaped at this attacker, intent on ripping his guts out, but their assailant simply dodged the attack and rewarded Brooklyn with a kick to the ribs.
CROW: It’s Jackie Chan!
Groaning, dropping to his knees, Brooklyn held his ribs, squeezing his eyes shut as the pain that racked through him began to subside and Brooklyn staggered to his feet wearily. Just as the stranger kicked Brooklyn in the back and sent him sprawling him against the wall to lie in an unconscious heap next to Lexington. The shadow chuckled pleasantly, and holding up the Gate, started to chant.
"Deflagrate Muri Tempi Et Intervalia!"
As a energy field from out of nowhere, covering the two gargoyles and their attacker, Brooklyn cracked open his eyelids, and croaked, "who…are…you?"
The stranger looked down and smiled contemptuously.
"The humans call me Kojak…"
CROW: He’s a cop?
TOM: He’s a gargoyle?
MIKE: He’s the villain?
BOTS: Duh!
Brooklyn closed his eyes again and slipped back into unconsciousness, the roaring sound of electrical energy ringing through his ears.
TOM: I didn’t know the gate ran on batteries.
CROW: Four AA’s.
They all disappeared in a haze of white light that shined into the alley opening where Goliath waited patiently with Broadway, and Hudson. The two unconscious gargoyles and Kojak were gone, fading out of existence into an unknown place and time within the white energy from which there was no escape.
And then the field itself was gone.
Goliath, hearing the chant and then the loud sound of electricity, rushed blindly into the alley. "Brooklyn! Lexington!"
There was no answer. Only a dark abandoned alley.
"BROOKLYN! LEXINGTON!" Goliath wailed frantically.
They were gone. With the Phoenix Gate.
And he had no idea how to find them…
TOM: Poor him.
Stumbling through the alley, trying to make sense of the situation, Goliath’s fragile mind
TOM: His mind is fragile?
CROW: What there is of it, yes.
desperately tried to figure out what had happened. Brooklyn and Lexington and the man who had stolen the Phoenix Gate, who had all been there less then 10 seconds ago, were just gone. And he could not figure out how except for one small detail. A thought that offered no solaces to him whatsoever. No solutions.
The Phoenix Gate.
TOM: Brilliant Holmes.
He had heard Kojak chanting in that bizarre Latin dialogue, screaming those words: "Deflagrate Muri Tempi Et Intervalia," just before he and two of Goliath’s clan, the two that he respected and loved the most next to Angela, just before they had been sucked into thin air. And the darkness and silence of the alley were giving no evidence that a battle had occurred here, or that there were two gargoyles here less then a minute ago.
MIKE: Okay, you’re thinking too much here. You know what happened, deal with it.
Watching her father worriedly, helplessly, Angela looked at Hudson. "Hudson? Can you help him?" She requested, a frightened light glowing in her eyes. Hudson nodded quickly, silently, and moved towards the alley to fulfill her wishes.
TOM: (HUDSON-LIKE) (WHAP!) Put ye’self together lad! Quit this mopin’!
Broadway hugged Angela tightly, listening to his love crying over the loss of two loving friends who truly had been dear to her.
TOM: Umm, it’s not like their dead.
CROW: As much as we might wish they were. Especially the beaked one! I hate him so much!
MIKE: I think we’ve established your hatred of Brooklyn, Crow.
Behind the staggering Purple bag of lard,
TOM: Broadway turned purple?
CROW: Either that or Goliath really let himself go in the last minute or so.
Hudson approached cautiously, not wanting to agitate the disturbed young one he had spent his life teaching the Gargoyle Way. "Lad?" The aged Gargoyle whispered in faint disbelief. "They are real’y gone, are’t they?"
Hearing the words, but not wanting to admit to this fact, Goliath ignored his mentor, taking the time instead to kneel down to where he had last Brooklyn, running his fingers all along the wall as though searching for something. Something that only he could see, and no one else.
"Did you not see them, old friend? They were right here, and I can’t get them back."
"Aye. I saw."
CROW: Booring!
TOM: It’s supposed to be poignant.
MIKE: If you keep using big words like that, you’ll overload his brain.
Hudson could sense the psychological torture that witnessing the sudden disappearance had done to his old friend whom he loved like a son. He understood that Goliath made himself responsible for all the clan, and losing two at once was making him suffer emotionally.
CROW: (ROLLING EYES.) Cobra loves pointing out the obvious.
TOM: Kinda like Mike.
MIKE: Hey now!
Goliath blamed himself for the absence of his second-in-command, and the computer hacker Gargoyle.
But he also knew that Brooklyn and Lexington had no chance of being rescued.
For the first time in his elderly life, Hudson had no idea what to do.
He only knew that Brooklyn and Lexington were completely on their own.
Save for being in the hands of a complete stranger who was a potential foe.
TOM: Thank you Mr. Basil Summation.
The darkness faded out, forming into a bright light that blinded him, making the limp form lying on his back on the ground raise a claw up to futilely protect his large eyes, and then it all came to him. Lexington. Kojak. The alley.
That strange chant, followed by the even stranger electric light that had jumped through him and pushed him back into the realm of unconsciousness, where he spent an unknown estimate of time remaining in darkness, not wanting to escape it. He just wanted the darkness to swallow him, to prevent from what hardships he had in his life, and then suddenly he was floating, feeling peaceful, as he looked up into the light…
TOM: Ding-dong the garg is dead!
CROW: Which old garg?
TOM: The Brooklyn garg!
Brooklyn opened his eyes wearily,
CROW: Damnit! Brooklyn never dies!
TOM: Except for that one time in Belgarion’s fic’s.
CROW: That wasn’t enough! He needs to die more!
and then blinked, as the memories of what had happened came flooding back to him, and he sat up, breathing heavily. What a wild ride THAT had been!
CROW: Yeah, hallucinogens can do that to you.
Brooklyn relaxed, taking in all the sights around him.
TOM: Like the pink elephants, rainbow sky…
He was back home, the trees of Central Park reaching to the sky, the buildings sitting leaned against each other downtown. He was back in Manhattan.
But it was not HIS Manhattan.
ALL: Huh?
Something was very wrong here.
MIKE: What else is new?
Damned if he knew what yet though.
CROW: He just knew he was damned.
TOM: No that’s you.
CROW: Shut up.
Noticing the lifeless green heap next to him, Brooklyn reached out slowly and shook Lexington by the shoulder. "Lex? Are you okay?"
TOM: Uhh, he’s dead, right?
The small Green One moaned, but his eyes did not open.
TOM: Damn!
"He’s unconscious," the brick-skinned garg though, a glimmer of worry forming in his chest.
MIKE: Shouldn’t that be the head?
CROW: Shaddup.
He didn’t know where he was and wanted to explore his new surroundings, but at the same time he didn’t want to leave his true love lying helpless on the grassy field, completely vulnerable.
CROW: How touching. Bleh!
TOM: If this fic gets any more saccharine, I’m gonna hurl.
And he couldn’t just pick him up, because Brooklyn wasn’t clear as to the extent of Lex’s wounds. So he just sat there on the soil, his knees tucked into his chest waiting patiently for his companion to awaken up.
MIKE: Awaken up?
ALL: Typo!
He had a long wait ahead of him.
CROW: And he dies of starvation in the meantime, right??
MIKE: You’re reaching Crow.
Approximately two hours later, Lexington opened his eyes weakly, coughing faintly and he looked up at his partner. "B-Brooklyn?" the smaller halfling gasped as he sat up onto his butt in a painful attempt to get up.
TOM: We don’t want to hear about Lex’s butt!!
CROW: I do!
TOM: You don’t count.
Upon seeing his mate restored to wakefulness, Brooklyn hugged Lex tightly, planting a kiss on his lips and refusing to let go.
MIKE: Here we go again. Ugh.
CROW: Hehehehe.
Startled, caught off guard, Lex tried to shove his happily emotional brother off of him.
"Are you okay, Lex? How bad are your injuries?"
CROW: Are you horny yet?
(MIKE WHAPS CROW.)
TOM: Are you dented yet?
CROW: Almost. (WINCING.)
"Brooklyn…I’m okay…Just give me a minute…" Lexington gasped, getting to his feet, being aided by Brooklyn. "Tha-Thaks, Brooklyn…" Lex closed his eyes, trying to swallow the pain that was flowing through his veins, and turned toward Brooklyn, confused.
"Is this Manhattan? It doesn’t feel like home…"
TOM: Yes, it’s Manhattan!
"It’s not." Brooklyn answered, his steely eyes locked on par with Lexington’s. "It’s something…twisted. Distorted. It’s like we slept for Forty years."
CROW: It’s Future Tense all over again! Maybe Brooklyn will die again!
MIKE: The only thing twisted and distorted around here is you.
CROW: (GROWLS) Keep it up, flesh boy.
Fully recovered now, Lexington glanced around, disoriented.
"It DOES seem different, doesn’t it?" the Olive gargoyle murmured, unable to believe what he was seeing. Everything was changed. Sure the trees in Central Park were touching the sky, but no leaves or vegetation of any kind grew there. The branches were as dead as Caesar. The town area was even worse.
TOM: Yeah, that would kinda tip you off.
Wandering the streets, no sign of human habitation in sight, Brooklyn and Lexington looked around at all the changes that seemed to have taken place, at least to them, in such a very short time. The buildings were decayed, the stone and wood and brick foundations crumbling. The store windows were cracked. Abandoned cars outlined the street, several of which were crashed into telephone poles, other cars, or storefronts.
TOM: You were right! Future Tense!
CROW: Yay! Everybody dies in that one!
"WHAT exactly happened here?" Lexington exclaimed, his surprise evidenced by the tone in his voice. Through all the years they had spent in this city, fighting the crime population, struggling to keep Manhattan from being overwhelmed with a callously annihilated climate caused by the high crime rates that were so rampant here, neither gargoyle had seen it this bad.
Manhattan looked like it had been leveled by the consequences of a major nuclear war.
TOM: No. If that happened, Manhattan would look like Kansas.
Suddenly, from out of the burnt blackened alleyway, a sexy human female approached the confused travelers.
CROW: (GROWLS) Yeah baby!
TOM: You got a bucket of water handy Mike?
MIKE: With him? Always.
Brooklyn stopped Lex, preventing him from going any further as he watched the vixen get closer. She stopped appreciatively, her black hair hanging in spreads, mussed around her head. Brooklyn grabbed her firmly and roughly by the arms.
CROW: (AS BROOKLYN.) I want you to f**k me now!
(MIKE WHACKS CROW, SPINNING HIS HEAD AROUND.) You say that again and I’ll take you apart with a rusty spoon!
CROW: (MEEKLY) Yes sir.
TOM: Wow.
"What the hell happened out here?"
Instead of answering, the girl rubbed Brooklyn’s arm madly, her eyes showing an _expression of fear and confusion. But most of all…panic. Something had obviously happened to this girl, for her state of mind was quite self-evident.
She was insane.
TOM: Kinda like Crow.
CROW: (PETULANTLY) I’m not insane. Just a little psychotic.
MIKE: A little?
"Such pretty, pretty wings…" the lunatic smiled, a goofy grin etched on her face as she released Brooklyn’s arm and touched the wing tip, stroking it gently, seeing something far away in her fevered mind. "Such pretty wings. I like winged creatures…"
MIKE: (BLINKS) Uhh. Okay, she’s definitely nuts.
CROW: (SMIRK) Nah, she just knows a hunk when she sees them.
Brooklyn seized her roughly, his eyes turning white as snow. "I asked you a question, miss. Now…TALK!"
TOM: He shouts at her and calls her "miss" in the same sentence? I’d say he’s unbalanced too.
CROW: A match made in the looney bin.
Back in the normal Manhattan,
MIKE: Normal?
(EVERYONE LAUGHS CRAZILY FOR ABOUT 5 SECONDS.)
atop the surfaces of Castle Wyvern, the worried clan leader paced back and forth, his arms tucked behind his back, and a anxious frown creasing his face, as though he were a clay figure and the disapproving glare had been plastered there by an artist.
MIKE: Da Vinci?
TOM: Picasso?
CROW: Worhol?
Hudson, Angela, Elisa, and Broadway watched him walk back and forth. Even Bronx whimpered and his ears drooped low.
Taking the chance since she was the best chance to break the cold ice that had frozen over Goliath in the last two hours,
MIKE: That’s what happens when you pace in the walk-in freezer.
Elisa crossed over to him gently, intent on saying something comforting to her lover. But she hugged him instead, sadness and anxiety chilling her to her very soul did she perform the normally predictable but utterly unexpected at this moment act of compassion and love.
TOM: Rather awkward sentence there.
MIKE: Cobra needs to proofread his stuff more.
CROW: Or pay us to do it!
Goliath hugged her back silently.
"Oh, Father, will we ever see them again?" Angela asked, sounding worried.
TOM: Of course. It’s a predictable plot.
Goliath looked at her and smiled. "Yes, my daughter. They will return as soon as they find a way back. I know them well enough to do that. I promise." Angela hugged her father next to Elisa. Hudson and Broadway stood silently, saying nothing as they watched.
But Goliath knew that they were just as worried as he was.
***
Brooklyn growled at the girl he held in his arms in what looked to be a loving embrace but was actually a vicious interrogation. "I said Talk! What happened? Is this Manhattan? What year is this?!"
CROW: Why am I in the fic?!
TOM: What’s the meaning of life?!
MIKE: 42.
BOTS: Huh?
When the girl still didn’t answer, he bared his fangs angrily. The girl suddenly looked terrified. Well, as terrified as a raving crazy person could look.
"The demons…" The girl ranted. "The demons…came out of the sea…with magical powers…killed everyone…I’m the last…" Finally, having suffered what was apparently lack of sleep and exhaustion from Brooklyn’s iron grip, the deranged human fell asleep. Brooklyn released her, watching as the limp form slipped to the pavement softly,
MIKE: How gentlemanly.
TOM: The demons were mermen?
then looked at Lexington. Lexington shrugged in earnest.
"She really WAS crazy, huh?"
ALL: Duh!
Lexington replied. Brooklyn looked at the empty street.
"I guess so. Okay, first things first. We find out what happened, then we go find this guy who transported us here…his name was Kojak. We get the Phoenix Gate back from him, and use it to get back to OUR Manhattan."
MIKE: Just like that, huh?
TOM: He’s the hero. He can do anything.
CROW: Except die when we want him to!
MIKE: Cut it out Crow.
Lexington waved his hand around at all the demolition.
MIKE: They’re at a demolition derby?
"Brooklyn, this IS our Manhattan. We’ve just been asleep for a long time, that’s all."
MIKE: Rip van Winkle.
TOM: And Rip van Wacky.
Brooklyn shook his head violently, his white hair whipping from side to side.
CROW: Let’s headbang!
TOM: White hair? He HAS been asleep a while.
"Lex, this is NOT our Manhattan. If it were, then where are the Gargoyles? Where’s Goliath? Or Broadway? Or Angela? No. This does not feel like Manhattan. At least, OUR Manhattan. It seems more like a alternate reality or something."
TOM: Sliders! Woohoo!
"But, Brooklyn…" Lexington started to say before his idol and love of the halfling’s life cut him off.
MIKE: Okay that's one description I didn’t need!
"No arguments, Lex. We’ve got to find Kojak and the Gate." Brooklyn answered harshly.
Lexington’s face drooped sadly, memories of a better world flowing through the small one’s calculating mind and making Brooklyn feel ashamed. Sighing, Brooklyn leaned down and hugged Lexington briefly. Lexington returned the hug, squeezing Brooklyn’s arms gently before they separated.
TOM: Don’t start that stuff again!
MIKE: Rent a room!
Brooklyn forced himself to tear his eyes away and settle on a burning car that sat parked in the middle of the road, burning up the residents inside it that might have once been alive, but were no longer.
MIKE: Ugh. Cobra’s getting a bit graphic with this one.
TOM: No, you’re just getting weak-stomached.
He sighed, and rubbed his beak absent-mindedly.
"Somehow…" he thought silently. "We WILL get out of here and back home where we belong…"
TOM: So swore the rusty garg.
CROW: Who didn’t have a clue as to how he was going this.
He looked quickly at the Olive form, which stood there, watching him, waiting for instructions, and smiled gently, showing his pointed teeth and fangs in a grotesque grin of desperation and sadness.
CROW: Brooklyn’s always been grotesque and desperate.
TOM: Kinda like you whenever you go on dates.
(CROW WHAPS TOM.)
Lexington, despite his misgivings about this place, forced himself to smile back.
"Let’s keep going," Brooklyn commanded. "We won’t get any answers just standing around out here."
As they slowly started off down the road, Brooklyn couldn’t help but think of the clan waiting back in their plane of reality. Were they worried, frantically trying to find an explanation for the two missing Gargoyles’ whereabouts? Stupid question. Of COURSE they were.
MIKE: We could have told you that!
But still, Brooklyn’s thoughts kept moving back to his clan. His home. Everything he loved that was not here. Hell, he was even starting to miss DEMONA,
ALL: AAHHH!
which just reminded him how much of a terrible situation they were actually in, if he was thinking about his red-headed enemy this much.
CROW: Demona had begun to look a lot more attractive lately…
MIKE: Don’t go there Crow.
CROW: Hey Mike, any way we could get her shot up here? (GRIN.)
MIKE: No.
CROW: Damn!
Suddenly he had an idea.
TOM: Cue the light bulb!
CROW: It burnt out.
TOM: So substitute a candle.
MIKE: Brooklyn’s not very bright.
If he couldn’t go to see the Castle in HIS world, why couldn’t Brooklyn see Castle Wyvern in THIS world?
MIKE: I don’t know. Why can’t he?
Then he would be able to meet up with the rest of the clan, provided that they were, of course, still alive here, in this land of desecration and abandonment. They should be still here, he reasoned. After all, isn’t it a Gargoyle custom to protect the Castle no matter what?
MIKE: That’s Goliath and Hudson’s creed. The others would run away if Xanatos looked at them funny.
And wasn’t the Castle still resting on it’s overlook atop the Eyrie Building?
TOM: No. The gargoyles got tired of it being there and pushed it off the edge.
MIKE: But then they wouldn’t have a castle to protect.
TOM: That gig was getting old anyway.
Looking up, suddenly unsure, Brooklyn’s fears were put to rest.
CROW: Along with the rest of him!
MIKE: You’re reaching again Crow.
There it was.
TOM: The end of the fic?
CROW: The death of Brooklyn?
MIKE: The pair of underwear I lost?
CROW: No, I ate those.
MIKE: They hadn’t been washed in a week!
CROW: I thought they tasted a little stale.
It was faint, a dark shadow looming high in the clouds of the night sky, but it was there, all right.
MIKE: A bird?
TOM: A plane?
CROW: Superman?
Now the only problem was to get to it quickly. Fortunately, he and Lexington both had wings.
Brooklyn looked at his rookery partner, and smirked vainly, those ever-present confident juices running through his brain.
CROW: And other ever-present juices running from other places.
MIKE: One more remark like that and I’ll wield your beak shut!
The smaller gargoyle looked at him, confused, then followed Brooklyn’s upward gaze, and, spotting the castle himself, smiled wickedly.
Glancing at Brooklyn only once, Lexington faced the wall of the annihilated police station before him and dug his talons into the brick interior, pulling his slight body upward as he climbed the building, Brooklyn following close behind.
"Nice view, Lex." Brooklyn remarked sarcastically.
CROW: (FRANTICALLY.) I wanna see! I wanna see!
(TOM LOOKS AT MIKE.) You sure he’s not gay?
MIKE: I’ll check his circuits after this is over.
Lex smirked.
Brooklyn wasn’t lying. Despite his take-charge frame of mind he was in, he couldn’t help but smile at the gargoyle climbing up the building, his loincloth showing Brooklyn much.
(CROW PANTS, BOUNCING IN HIS SEAT.)
TOM: Calm down lavender boy!
Lexington looked down, and saw the wistful grin.
"Uh, uh, don’t even think about it…Brook," Lexington chortled,
CROW: Darn!
(TOM AND MIKE BOTH SIGH IN RELIEF.)
MIKE: At least Cobra didn’t go into too much detail this time.
chuckling lightly at his friend’s new nickname. "This isn’t the time for such stuff. We’ve got a Castle to reach, remember?" "Uh-huh. Sure, Lex," Brooklyn answered, trying to stay focused on the meaningful task at hand that needed to be accomplished. Grabbing some ass wasn’t going to help their cause.
CROW: Or grabbing other things.
MIKE: That’s it! (GRABS THE BUCKET OF ICE WATER AND DUMPS IT ON CROW.)
CROW: AAHH! That’s cold!! (SHIVERING.)
MIKE: Maybe that will cool you down for a while.
(CROW SHIVERS IN HIS SEAT, ICICLES FORMING ON HIS BEAK.)
Pulling himself onto the brick cornices, Lexington turned around to help Brooklyn up. Grabbing Brooklyn’s outstretched hand, Lex pulled hard and he and his lover went sprawling on the floor of the roof. Brooklyn looked down at Lex. "Nice position, huh?"
CROW: Hehehe! (THE ICE ON HIM BEGINS TO MELT.)
MIKE: (SIGHS.) Cobra just can’t leave it alone. I’ll get another bucket. (WALKS OFFSTAGE.)
Lexington just laughed silently and slid himself out from under the cherry red gargoyle before him.
TOM: Brooklyn’s gone from brick to cherry red?
CROW: No, just certain parts of his anatomy.
TOM: How would you know?
(CROW GRINS.)
"Brooklyn, any foreplay we do will be done at home, not here, okay?"
CROW: But they are home! Do it now!
TOM: (CALLS OFFSTAGE.) Mike! Where’s that bucket?!
MIKE: (OFFSTAGE.) It’s coming!
"What if we NEVER get home?"
Lex suddenly looked glum. "Don’t ever say that, okay? Things have a funny way of happening when you don’t want them to, or if you say things like what you just did."
CROW: And things that I want to happen never do in this fic!
TOM: And they never will if you keep this up.
(MIKE RETURNS WITH ANOTHER BUCKET OF ICE WATER AND SITS IT BESIDE CROW.)
"Whatever," Brooklyn brushed himself off, and stepped onto the edge of the roof, spreading his wings and taking off. "Hey! Wait up!" He heard Lex shout behind him, and slowed down to allow his affection catch up to him. Brooklyn smirked.
"Hey what took ya so long?"
Lexington stuck his tongue out.
MIKE: Don’t say it Crow!
CROW: Say what?
MIKE: I’m not going there.
"Better watch it with that tongue. A pigeon will snatch it, and then you’ll be in trouble," Brooklyn remarked, his grin stretching his face in two.
MIKE: That’s gotta hurt.
Lexington said nothing, but he smiled a tooth-less smirk, and soared upwards, landing on the upper tower, looking around, as Brooklyn landed next to him. They looked around hesitantly. "Goliath? Are you here? We’re home…"
TOM: Actually, they’re not.
CROW: (AS GOLIATH.) We’re in Xanatos’s office having an orgy!
MIKE: Dunk your head Crow!
(CROW OBEDIENTLY DUNKS HIS HEAD IN THE ICE WATER AND COMES OUT WITH ICICLES AGAIN.)
TOM: Pretty soon you’ll be able to get a job as a snow cone machine.
There was no answer. The place was empty.
Brooklyn looked around, confused. "Goliath? It’s Brooklyn. Can you hear me?"
TOM: He just said it was empty!
The only sound was the sound of crickets chirping from somewhere in the darkness.
Brooklyn paled, his hands trembling slightly, as he tried a light. It didn’t come on. Like the town below, the Castle appeared to have been vacant for a thousand years. Where WAS everyone hiding?
CROW: They’re not hiding! They’re dead! Like you should be!
MIKE: Calm down Crow.
Brooklyn shivered, a chill at long last shooting down his spinal cord, leaving a feeling of dread in Brooklyn’s stomach. Okay, he definitely did not like this now.
TOM: He’s a little slow isn’t he?
Suddenly, from behind him there was a sound of…
MIKE: Shooting?
TOM: Farting?
CROW: No, that was me.
MIKE: Eww!
Whistling?
ALL: Huh?!
Craning his head to look, Brooklyn saw for the first time since he had arrived here in this hellish world Kojak, holding the Phoenix Gate, and smirking disdainfully.
TOM: Cue the villainous smirk!
Brooklyn snarled, his flaming white as marshmallows.
MIKE: His flaming white what?
CROW: I didn’t think a gargoyle’s anatomy glowed.
TOM: I think Cobra’s referring to his eyes.
CROW: Marshmellows don’t glow!
MIKE: Marshmellows that glow in the dark! Ohhh!
Kojak held up one hand. "Hold it."
TOM: I’ve got a Phoenix Gate and I know how to use it.
CROW: We’ve already determined that.
TOM: Shut up and read.
Brooklyn paused. "Why? Where’s the rest of the clan?" He roared. "Who ARE you?!"
ALL: Kojak, you dumba$$!!
Instead of answering, Kojak said simply. "You don’t recognize your own grandson?"
ALL: WHAA?!
Brooklyn stared, amazed, unable to believe his ears.
MIKE: We can’t believe it either.
TOM: He’s reproducing! NOOOOO!
CROW: The world is doomed!
Catching the surprised look on his lover’s face, Lexington sneered. "You can’t be Brooklyn’s grandson! Brooklyn’s not into female gargoyles! He’s gay! So he can never have kids…or grandkids. Stop bullshitting us!"
TOM: It’s amazing what they can do with in-vitro these days.
The cloaked creature shook his head, and for the first time Brooklyn caught sight of the familiar looking beak and gasped. "I AM Brooklyn’s grandson, but I cannot prove it at the moment. I have no time." He looked at the rusty-skinned form before him. "You are desired to assist in my mission, grandfather. Without you, all will be lost."
MIKE: ‘All’ is an awfully vague term.
Tom: If everything wasn’t threatened the hero wouldn’t waste his time.
CROW: (AS BROOKLYN.) Only one continent will be destroyed? Make it the world and you’ve got a deal.
"Not so fast," Brooklyn spoke for the first time since Kojak’s chilling revelation. "I want some questions answered first. You say you’re my grandson, and that you need me. But if you are of my future bloodline, then how did you get here? Surely you did not have the Phoenix Gate to transport you. Otherwise you would not have stolen it in the first place."
MIKE: Score one for the hero.
"In my time," Kojak responded. "The Phoenix Gate has been discovered, and duplicate copies created through the feats of science and sorcery. I had my Gate with me when I arrived here, but I have lost it before I could find you. Stealing Xanatos’ talisman was the only way for me to return home with you."
CROW: Score one for the villain.
"Why do you need me?" Brooklyn asked. He had his own suspicions about this character. This "Kojak" who was supposedly his grandchild? This gargoyle who now was smirking vainly at the red and green lovers? This Gargoyle who had dragged them here.
TOM: This train of thought that is rapidly becoming dull.
"Why did you drag us here?" Lexington asked wearily. "Where IS here, anyways?"
ALL: Manhattan!!
TOM: Those two are sure getting dense.
MIKE: Heroes aren’t known for their brains.
Kojak smiled at Lexington patiently. "This is Manhattan, as I’m sure you know already. But it is not your Manhattan.
MIKE: On three…
ALL: Huh?!
The year is 2121, and this is MY Manhattan." He brushed his clawed three fingered hand at the window. "Take a look. My world was beautiful once, before Demona created its destruction."
MIKE: She’s sure been busy, huh?
TOM: But if she destroyed the world, what will she do now?
CROW: Run around, dancing in the streets.
Brooklyn’s ears caught the sound of the name, and his eyes flared a fiercely angry color of white before turning back to the regular Hazel.
TOM: Damn those hazel eyes! Why do heroes always have hazel eyes?!
MIKE: The same reason they’re always buff and thick-headed.
TOM: And that reason would be?
MIKE: Umm…ahhh…read!
(THE BOTS GIGGLE.)
"Demona? She did this?" Kojak nodded sadly. "She finally got her revenge years ago. All the humans on Earth, save the few still alive who went mad, are dead…as are the rest of your clan. I’m the last gargoyle remaining from Manhattan. I’m sorry."
TOM: Real sincere pal!
"Goliath? Elisa? Bronx? Broadway and Angela?" Brooklyn trembled.
"They all died long ago. Xanatos, Fox, and Alexander, who was by that time in his 30’s, fought valiantly but futilely against Demona, and they were all killed in battle. Owen was denounced to be Puck and was destroyed. Demona took over the world soon after, rooting out any Gargoyles that survived and bending them to her will, killing those whom resisted, the rest of your clan included."
CROW: How’d they manage to off Puck so easily?
TOM: Iron rations in his food?
CROW: How’d they off Xanatos so easily?
MIKE: Crushed his ego.
"What about Macbeth?" Lexington demanded. "Can’t he do something about this?" Kojak closed his eyes sadly. "Unfortunately, Macbeth went into hiding soon after the Xanatos family were killed. I don’t know why, but he seems to want to have nothing to do with Demona or the dying breed known as Humans."
MIKE: Coward.
"I have a story to tell you. Perhaps you’d better sit down. It’s a long tale."
(EVERYONE GROANS.)
Brooklyn and Lexington found a place to sit side by side on a shattered parapet, and listened intently as Kojak began his story. The cloaked gargoyle gazed at the two for a second, and then began his tale, loneliness dripping behind every word he spoke.
TOM: Actually that would be drool dripping.
MIKE: Eww!
"I was born in 2056. Yes, Brooklyn, you and Lexington were still gay then and had become life-mates long before that year. However, soon after you two celebrated your new eternal union, Angela and Brooklyn had both gotten drunk. Alcohol is a far more mind messing experience for Gargoyles then for humans. So much so that Brooklyn confused Angela for you, Lex.
TOM: How in the hell do you not notice the difference?!
CROW: What were they drinking?! Kerosene?!
In his drunken haze, he didn’t notice that the gargoyle he was fucking was a female.
MIKE: I didn’t think that was possible.
CROW: How could you possibly not know?!
And thus I was born. Angela never told you about it, Brooklyn, because she was afraid of what would happen should Broadway discover your little deed. My mother was sent to live with the Guatemalan Clan before the egg was hatched. Broadway never saw the egg, and so when his time came, he died not knowing that Angela had birthed Brooklyn’s child.
CROW: Aww! (PITIFUL SNIFFLING.)
MIKE: Put a sock in it Crow.
CROW: Okay. (STOPS.)
My mother and I lived soundly in the Guatemalan Rain Forest with my father until I was the age of 25, when the devastation broke out. My parents were killed, and I joined Demona’s allies for a short period under the art of espionage. When I learned what I needed to know, I fled, took one of the Phoenix Gates, and came to your time to find you, my ancestor, and possibly stop all this from ever happening. I want to stop Demona, and I need your help to do it, Brooklyn. Demona is fully powerful now, venting her rage against the human race eons ago, and now using her immortality to ensnare the remaining Gargoyles into her web of lies to achieve her own purposes. I know not yet what they are, but rest assured, when someone like Demona is in charge, their plans are always sinister.
TOM: Brilliant Holmes.
MIKE: (SARCASTICALLY.) This is Demona we’re talking about here.
I came to your timeline to find Brooklyn, and bring him back with me in an attempt to change what has been…or, for you two, what will be. If Macbeth had not gone into hiding, he would have been an useful ally in my war against Queen Bitch herself. Very useful, seeing as how he’s the only one who can kill her."
"And you want us…me…to help you change the past to avert the future?" Brooklyn concluded, understanding sinking into his collective mind.
MIKE: Collective mind?
TOM: This isn’t the only Brooklyn around. He’s in lots of ficverses. They’re all connected.
(CROW WAILS DESPAIRINGLY, SMOKE POURING FROM HIS HEAD AND BEAK.)
MIKE: Crow! (GRABS HIM AND DUNKS HIM IN THE BUCKET.) I think you broke him Tom!
(MIKE TAKES CROW OUT OF THE BUCKET, STEAMING.)
CROW: We’ll never be free of Brooklyn! He’ll plague us forever! Kill me now!
(MIKE PATS CROW AWKWARDLY.) There, there Crow. It’ll be okay.
(CROW HUNCHES DOWN IN HIS SEAT, SOBBING. MIKE SHRUGS AND SITS BACK IN HIS OWN.)
Lexington stared at Kojak and Brooklyn, unable to believe what he was hearing. With everything that Kojak had told them, everything that had been done in the last twenty-four hours made perfect sense now, but still…
"You’re lying!" Lexington snarled, pointing an accusing green finger at his lover’s descendent. Kojak looked pained and Brooklyn jumped at Lex quickly. "Lex, I think he’s telling the truth." "No way, Brook! You can’t believe this guy!"
TOM: Brooklyn is a little too trusting.
MIKE: Hatchlings.
"And why not? He obviously brought us here for a reason. Maybe we should hear him out." Brooklyn suggested calmly, keeping an arm curled around Lex’s slender shoulder. "Maybe Kojak is lying. Maybe not. But as long as we question him, we’ll never know for sure."
MIKE: Good point.
Lexington considered. Everything Kojak had said seemed to be sincere and truthful. Also, why else would the strange Gargoyle have brought them both to his time? Brooklyn was probably right. Kojak looked pretty genuine whenever he mentioned the death of his clan and the deaths of his parents. Lexington didn’t like what was happening here, but he knew he could nothing but comply with Kojak’s expectant wishes. He sighed and took the eager Gargoyle’s hand.
"I’m in." Lexington notioned, wondering why he had agreed to it, but knowing he had had no choice. He had an unsettling instinct around this strange Kojak character, but if Brooklyn, his true love, was joining in to try and stop Demona, then Lex was not about to just step back and let his lover risk being called.
MIKE: Cobra’s phrasing this kinda strangely, isn’t he.
TOM: Cobra *is* strange.
MIKE: Oh yeah!
(CROW FINALLY BEGINS TO QUIET DOWN, STILL HUNCHED DOWN. TOM LOOKS AT HIM.)
TOM: This is the quietest I’ve ever seen him.
MIKE: It takes a real shock to shut him up.
Brooklyn meant a lot to him, and he wanted to be there to watch his back for him, in the inevitable event of battle. Unsettling feelings or not, Lex still didn’t entirely trust Kojak, but he didn’t want to leave Brooklyn all alone in this. So he had decided to go with them both.
"Me, too." Brooklyn seconded, just smiling down at his rookery brother cheerfully, as though nothing were wrong. In the back of his mind, Brooklyn wondered if Lexington really wanted to go at all. After all, the green fleshed gargoyle didn’t seem to care for Kojak too fondly. But Brooklyn knew that Lexington would never have allowed him to go on a dangerous mission alone without backup. Brooklyn didn’t want Lex to come for fear that they would both die but at the same time he couldn’t be more thrilled. In that moment, Brooklyn loved Lexington even more then before.
MIKE:*SIGH* Okay. You love him. We got that.
Knowing that the deal was done, that the contract was signed, Kojak nodded reassuringly, and extended his hands. "It is a two day flight from here to Guatemala where Demona’s base of operations is located. Not to mention the hours we’ll miss in our stone sleeps. Let us go now. Come with me."
Taking his grandson’s left hand, Brooklyn gazed at his lover, who was standing there stubbornly, arms crossed. "You coming, Lex?" Lexington regarded Brooklyn irritably, then nodded and hesitantly grabbed Kojak’s right hand, giving his lover a small smile. Kojak opened his wings, and just before he dived to catch the updraft, looked at his traveling companions, pleased. "Good choice. You are both doing the right thing."
"Yeah, yeah, yeah," Lexington muttered while Brooklyn fixed him with a stern look.
MIKE: I second that statement.
Leaping off the balcony, Kojak, Lexington, and Brooklyn soared downwards for a few seconds. Then, catching a rising rush of wind, they soared skywards, leaving the devastated city behind. These three Gargoyles were on a mission, and nothing could deter them from it.
TOM: So there!
MIKE: Nyah!
As they leaped towards the moon, wings flapping, the three separated and disappeared into the horizon, being swallowed by the night sky as they glided in the direction of one destination.
Guatemala.
***
MIKE: That was sure fast.
TOM: Stars can do amazing things, can’t they?
Grasping onto Kojak’s hand, Brooklyn gazed down at the city below him. The province of the destroyed streets of Manhattan, New York.
MIKE: Oops.
(CROW CHUCKLES QUIETLY.)
MIKE: Nice to see you’re still operational.
Already, he was starting to forget the complete sense of anxiety that was stirred within him as his eyes first took in the sights of the burnt blackened buildings. Not to mention the chaos that outlined the roads.
CROW: Repression does that to you.
TOM: How would you know?
(CROW REGARDS TOM COOLLY.) If I showed you all the stuff in my unconscious, you’d short circuit.
Brooklyn stifled a sob as he remembered what Kojak had claimed had happened to the clan.
Why THEM? Why did this future have to require the aid of Brooklyn and his newly joined lover? Couldn’t Kojak have handled the devastation on his own? Why was Brooklyn needed to go to Guatemala and help put an end to Demona’s treachery?
CROW: Why you? Why us? Because you’re there, shmuck! You’re in the wrong place at the wrong time!
MIKE: It’s nice to see Crow venting his frustrations.
TOM: He’s sounding awfully sane to me.
MIKE: Is that a bad thing?
The most important, in the gargoyle’s fevered mind, was…What would happen to him and Lex when this was all over, assuming they lived to see the end of Demona’s latest scheme?
CROW: They don’t! They all die! HAHAHAHA!
MIKE: Shut it or dunk it Crow.
CROW: Eep!
Glancing at the gargoyle on his right side, squirrel like wings open and flapping as Lexington flew, Brooklyn couldn’t help but hope that he and Lex would get this thing in one piece. If something had happened, the one mate who had not rejected him, Brooklyn knew he would want nothing more then his own death, to rejoin with Lexington and the clan members on the other side.
TOM: (SARCASTIC.) How romantic.
CROW: He has a death wish! Yes! There’s hope for him yet.
MIKE: Meanwhile, there’s no hope for you Crow.
Brooklyn blinked furiously as his eyes burned suddenly from the scorching rays of the rising sun. Kojak noticed the approaching apparition and glided back towards the earth. "We must find a place to roost. Come". Brooklyn and Lexington followed at a distance. Lexington looked at his mate compassionately and yet, angrily.
MIKE: How can the sun be an apparition?
‘Why are we following him? For all we know this could be a trap."
TOM: Of course it is!
CROW: But since they’re heroes they’re going to spring it anyway.
MIKE: And win the day despite impossible odds.
Brooklyn shook his head in disagreement. "When Kojak mentioned stopping Demona, Lex, I just felt this odd sense of…having a strange bond with him.
TOM: Great! Now he’s bonded to his grandson too!
CROW: You know what they say about keeping it in the family.
MIKE: Don’t go there Crow!
Like I was his family.
BOTS: Oh.
Now that I know that I am a part of his blood, as he is mine, it makes me feel proud." He gazed at the soaring gargoyle ahead of him. "Looking at him, listening to that bitter tone he had about Demona, it reminded me of…myself. Obviously, he got that trait from me.
MIKE: No! He got it because Demona destroyed the world!
TOM: Ol’ Brook’s really reaching here.
So that makes us family, after all. No matter what doubts you or I may have about Kojak…"
"I guess so," Lexington muttered unhappily, spreading his wings and landing on the floor of a balcony without looking at the surroundings first, Kojak watching him on his left. When Brooklyn touched down, he recognized where he was instantly and gasped in amazement. Lexington looked at him. "Are you okay?" Brooklyn did not reply. He just kept staring forward, and Lexington looked, and saw it for the first time in seemingly years.
MIKE: His ex-wife?
TOM: His clan?
CROW: His death?
MIKE: Would you stop with that!
CROW: But he never dies!
TOM: He does in Belgarion’s ficverse.
CROW: True.
The rubble. The mangled ceiling. The debris. The crumbling walls. This was definitely familiar, and Lexington knew where he was. Where Brooklyn was. Where Kojak was.
MIKE: Where we are.
They were back at the clock tower above the police station. The same tower that the Canmore children had long ago, in a state of wrongful intentions and unjust hatred had annihilated, nearly killing the Gargoyles. The clan would have perished if Lexington had not spotted the tracking device at the last second. Thankfully, Lexington HAD discovered and warned the clan quickly enough to find a hiding place. Now, this hallowed shell was all that was left of the clan’s home away from the Castle.
MIKE: Okay, why did he remind us of that?
TOM: He felt like it.
MIKE: Oh.
Lexington glowered annoyed at Kojak. "What the fuck is wrong with you, bringing us HERE?!" Kojak regarded the smaller gargoyle half amusedly. "This was the closest place to rest before the sun rose." Lexington’s face twisted. "You lousy son of a—"
TOM: Such language Lex! Shame on you!
CROW: Yeah, you’ll burn Mike’s virgin ears!
MIKE: (GRUMBLING.) I’m not that pure.
(THE BOTS GIGGLE UNCONTROLLABLY.)
And the sun lifted into the early morning sky completely, freezing all three gargoyles in stone. Lexington’s stony face shaped in an eerily fiercely agitated _expression. Brooklyn’s granite shape grabbing for his rookery brother. And the instigator of this journey, Kojak himself, looking cynical, his arms crossed rhythmically across his cemented chest. They would stay in those positions until the sun sank into the dark depths of the evening atmosphere to come back later.
MIKE: I would not have guessed.
When it did, when the sky turned black, the three gargoyles returned to flesh, roaring their wakefulness into the climates of the chilly New York air, casting stone shards down to the streets below. Lexington yawned, and looked at Kojak. "May we continue our voyage to Guatemala now?" he asked mockingly. Kojak smiled evilly. "It is time to resume our journey. Let us go."
"Who died and made you boss?" Lexington questioned suspiciously.
MIKE: You just said you wanted to go!
"You led us here, true, and we will help any way we can. But Brooklyn is your ancestor. I am too, in a way. Why should YOU tell US what to do?"
CROW: (OLD MAN VOICE.) Kids today got no respect for their elders!
MIKE: Okay, Lex is getting annoying.
TOM: Someone kill him for us.
CRPW: Yeah, then Brooklyn will kill himself and we’ll all be much happier.
Brooklyn sighed and placed his hand on the lover’s shoulder to relax him.
"Lex," Brooklyn spoke. "That is enough. Please." Lex simply glared, and relaxed with a sigh, his shoulders slumping. "Okay, Brooklyn. I’ll stop baiting him, just because you asked me to."
CROW: What else will he do if Brooklyn asks?
MIKE: I’d rather not know.
Brooklyn smiled and kissed him warmly then pulled away. "Thanks Lex."
"Let us go," Kojak instructed, opening his wings and leaping off the drop off, catching an updraft and soaring up and way. Brooklyn and Lexington looked at each other, then shrugged, and followed him, flapping rapidly to catch up with their companion. Kojak smiled softly to himself, as he observed the two Gargs approaching out of the corner of his eye. Brooklyn flew up to Kojak’s left, and looked at him curiously. "How much farther to Guatemala?" Kojak smiled at him. "A long way," was all he would say, and Brooklyn accepted that answer.
TOM: They’re in New York! It’s damn far!
MIKE: How are they going to fly all the way down there?
TOM: Very slowly.
But Lexington did not. No matter what he promised Brooklyn, the small gargoyle still did not trust this unknown gargoyle that was leading him. Something about this whole affair was bothering Lex, and he couldn’t quite say what it was, but he didn’t like this plan.
MIKE: He doesn’t like anything about this! The plan’s just the icing on the cake.
CROW: Mmmm! Icing! (DROOLS)
Did Kojak have some secret agenda of his own?
ALL: Yes.
Was this whole thing a trap?
ALL: Yes.
Lexington’s first experience with The Pack had taught him to always trust his instincts.
TOM: Good for him.
And his instincts told him that Kojak was nothing but trouble.
MIKE: On three…
ALL: DUH!
He would just have to keep his non-trusting eyes on Kojak.
MIKE: His eyes don’t trust him? What about the rest of him?
TOM: The rest of him is still undecided.
If Brooklyn’s "descendant" tried anything funny, Lexington knew that he would know in a heartbeat. Suffice it to say he did not trust Kojak or Brooklyn’s decision to follow him.
TOM: Yes. We’ve established this. Move on!
Sure they were on a desperate mission to stop Demona and change the past, but what effects would changing the past have on him and Brooklyn?
TOM: Nothing! They’re from an alternate dimension!
Lex didn’t want anything, even the waves of time and space, to interrupt his new relationship with his rookery brother turned mate.
MIKE: He might get sick on the waves.
Tiring quickly, their wings beginning to ache, the Trio of travelers stopped on the desecrated back road of western Maine to take a breather.
MIKE: I didn’t know the back roads of western Maine was holy ground.
Brooklyn slumped against a tree. He couldn’t believe how winded he felt. Next time he traveled anywhere this far, it would be on a motorcycle. Brooklyn smiled suddenly, a mental image of him racing down the Manhattan roads, the wind whipping his white hair around, Lex clinging to him, the small green hands wrapped around his waistline coming to mind. Yeah, that was a nice image for the red gargoyle all right.
MIKE: But not for us!
CROW: Speak for yourself.
MIKE: Okay, once this is over, I’m checking your circuits for fruitiness.
Too bad that they couldn’t do that right now. Just forget their troubles and go on a nice easy ride. Maybe there’d be time for that kind of activity when this mission was over, and they were returned to their own timeline…
Maybe.
"Okay, we’ve recovered. We still have a long way to go, and it’s best to get moving." Kojak replied serenely,
MIKE: Cobra’s sure free with his adverbs. First Kojak smiles evilly, now he talks serenely, what’s next?
CROW: He jacks off wantonly?
(WHAP!)
CROW: Ow! Hey, you asked!
and the small group was soon up and gliding again. Lexington fumed. Who did Kojak think he was, telling then what to do? Just because he was related to Brooklyn didn’t mean that had to act like an army commander.
MIKE: Would you shut up about hating Kojak! We know that already!
TOM: Cobra wants to make sure we get it.
Lexington was about to tell the prick off
CROW: That could be fun! Whose prick?
MIKE: Dunk your head Crow.
(SPLASH!)
CROW: Water’s nice and warm now! (GRIN.)
when he looked at Brooklyn, who was staring at him, and shaking his head no. Lexington sighed, a feeling of fatigue rising in his chest. Maybe Brooklyn was right. Maybe he didn’t like Kojak, but Lexington decided to give him a chance. After all, even though he had trouble with the Pack before, that didn’t mean that every person he had bad feelings about was going to turn into a complete sleaze, right?
TOM: No, just a three-quarter sleaze.
Lexington smiled at last, making his final decision. Kojak was probably just bossy because it stemmed from Brooklyn’s sense of responsibility. Maybe the whole take charge factor was just hereditary to Kojak.
MIKE: Maybe Kojak’s just used to getting his own way. There’s hardly anyone to boss him around.
Now that he had time to think about it, Lexington realized that the chances this whole thing was a trap wasn’t very plausible. Kojak was not the most laid back gargoyle in the world, but he was strict and fair, from what Lexington had seen, anyway. Why would he lead them into a trap in the first place?
BOTS: Because he feels like it!
Lexington glided to his lover and whispered in his ear.
"I’m through fighting with Kojak now."
Brooklyn smiled and looked away, leaving Lexington to his thoughts.
When they had finally reached Guatemala at long lost, after a few days of resting their wings and constant intervals of stone rest, the three finally arrived in the forests of Guatemala.
ALL: Yay.
"I’ve never seen so many trees!" Lexington whispered in awe, running his claws against the bark of an ancient sycamore.
TOM: What? You gonna act like a dog and mark them?
Kojak smiled. "I know you enjoy the vegetation here, but we are not here to admire the surroundings. We have a job to do. Remember that."
TOM: As if we could forget that.
He nodded to his left. "Demona’s corporation is that way. We will launch a sneak attack, get inside, find the Phoenix Gate that I will need to escort you back to your time, and we will not let anything get in our way."
MIKE: Oh, yes. Very simple. No problem.
TOM: What a rousing speech. I almost feel like hovering up and down with excitement.
CROW: This guy sure knows how to rouse his troops.
"And what will YOU do?"
CROW: Stand back and watch the two of you die horribly.
"I will use the Gate to go back with you, but I will go to stop your clan from being killed. If they are saved, they will thwart Demona again, and none of this, which you have seen, will come to pass. The future, and your city, will go living in a peaceful existence."
ALL: Yay.
"As peaceful as Manhattan can get, anyway." Brooklyn snickered.
(EVERYONE LAUGHS FOR ABOUT FIVE SECONDS.)
Kojak looked at the dark building in the distance. "We must go. Now." He took a few steps forward, and a laser gun suddenly appeared from the thick shrubbery, poking the startled half-ling in the chest, making him back up a step in surprise.
MIKE: Yikes.
TOM: Cue the plot!
CROW: Where can I get one of those?
Brooklyn and Lexington gasped in surprise, then Brooklyn’s eyes faded to that milky white color.
"Demona!"
TOM: Cue the villainess!
The evil gargress smiled arrogantly. "Ah, my young ones." She aimed the gun at the three of the horrified gargoyles. "Sorry to spoil your party." She sneered cruelly, her mouth twisted into an insane leer of hatred.
"But the fun is over."
ALL: Aww!
"Demona," Brooklyn snarled. "I should've known I'd run into you again."
MIKE: You flew down here just to see her, dumba$$.
The flame haired gargress smiled, that familiar _expression of utter insanity twinkling in her eye. "Ah, my young Brooklyn, I see that you have arrived to stop me."
TOM: Cue the utterly boring evil plan dialogue between main characters.
Her smile faded and she aimed the bazooka at the trio huddled before her. "But isn't that always the case?" Brooklyn's eyes flared. Demona poked the gun into Brooklyn's side threateningly. "Now, you and your mate, which isn't too surprising, knowing you, move. NOW." Lexington snarled at her, mentally imaging a thousand deaths upon their hated foe.
CROW: Only a thousand? I can come up with 1,567,283 various deaths in 1.2 seconds.
MIKE: You’ve got way to much RAM on your hands.
"Go to hell, Demona!" Brooklyn retorted. "At least I HAVE a mate. What's your excuse, bitch?"
TOM: Score one for the hero!
Demona's last nerve vanished and she growled. Brooklyn leapt at her, intending to end this threat against them once and for all. But instead of taking her punishment, Demona dodged the lunge and whacked Brooklyn on the back of the head with the gun before shooting it at Lex.
TOM: Score one for Demona!
"Fools! You will die!"
MIKE: How original.
Lexington jumped in and out of different spots of the forest, his skin tone blending in with the surroundings, keeping the gargoyle camouflaged. The angry she-devil howled in frustration. WHACK!
Crow: (SINGING.) A weenie whack, a weenie whack…
MIKE: Take five Crow!
Demona's eyes suddenly rolled up in her head, and she hit the dirt.
ALL: Yay!!
Lexington looked up surprised, as Kojak unclenched his fist and lowered it to his side. "Enemies should never turn their backs on me. It gets them headaches every time," the gargoyle mocked.
(EVERYONE LAUGHS.)
Lexington laughed, and then scuttled over to where his lover lay unconscious. Brooklyn moaned and opened his eyes. "Brooklyn, are you okay?" The young warrior rubbed the back of his head painfully. Demona sure knew how to pack a punch, that was for certain.
TOM: She’d had lots of practice.
"Yeah, I'm fine, Lex." Lexington looked at Demona's crumpled form worriedly. "What are we going to do with her?" "We take her with us," Kojak replied. "We don't know what kind of security measures Demona may have installed here. We'll need her to get inside." "And then what?" "Then we leave her." "And let her escape?" Brooklyn demanded. "let her attack us again? That's insane!"
MIKE: Don’t you just love run on conversations?
CROW: He’s insane, Brooklyn’s insane, everybody’s insane!
MIKE: And you’re insane.
CROW: No, I’m psychotic.
Kojak regarded his relative amusedly. "We don't have much of a choice, grandfather. We can't kill her, and we can't keep her with us. She'll draw too much attention."
MIKE: From who?! It’s a rainforest!
"And you think leaving her won't?' "No," Kojak answered, and when they were in, Kojak, using some strange type of technological gun,
MIKE: Is that like medieval magic?
shot the wall, tossed Demona's form into it, and fired at the wall again. The hole shrank down until there was no sign at all that the wall had been blasted out.
ALL: OOOOO!
CROW: Mike could sure use that for his underwear pile.
MIKE: Hey!
Brooklyn watched all this in amazement. "Wow," was all Lexington could say. Brooklyn looked at Kojak. "Such good weapons they must have in his time," Brooklyn thought. "I wonder what else he could do that we can't."
CROW: Give himself a blowjob?
MIKE: Crow! Get your mind out of the gutter.
CROW: It was born there. It doesn’t want to leave home.
MIKE: I’ll make it leave by tearing it out of your head if you keep this up.
The red skinned gargoyle had no idea what was about to take place. He casually asked, "So where do we go now?" Kojak raised a clawed hand and shushed his ancestor. "There is an engine room. If we go there, we can kill the power." Brooklyn nodded.
MIKE: And do what?
TOM: Make it really hard to see.
"Okay." A few minutes later, the engine room door kicked in, and the Trio glanced around the brightly lit room. Lexington suddenly noticed something in the upper right corner of the ceiling. "Look!" the small gargoyle cried, pointing. Father and Grandson looked. At the cage dangling from the ceiling, Angela's arms wrapped behind her by a heavy chain inside the cage.
MIKE: I thought Angela was dead.
TOM: Kojak lied.
Brooklyn, getting confused, looked at Kojak. "What's going on?' he questioned, not seeing the electric tazer appear in his descendant's right taloned hand. "You'll know in a minute...grandfather," Kojak promised. And with that, he rammed the tazer into Brooklyn's stomach.
MIKE: Owch!
The Gargoyle grimaced, and collapsed. Lexington flinched back, shocked, and Kojak leapt at him, giving him the same treatment.
CROW: I wouldn’t mind having that treatment in certain places!
MIKE: How about your CPU?
CROW: Eep!
When Lexington was taking a short nap, Kojak grinned evilly. "Nighty-night, you two," he laughed.
TOM: Cue the maniacal villain laughter.
MIKE: Oh, no!
CROW: MWUHAHAHAHA!
MIKE: You had to say it!
TOM: Sorry. Forgot.
Brooklyn glared at Kojak, his jaw clenched in anger, as the traitorous gargoyle pushed him into Angela’s cage. "Why are you doing this?" the brownish red gargoyle questioned. Kojak snickered. "Demona kept me alive all this time. If it hadn’t been for her, I would’ve perished with you and the others years ago." Brooklyn’s eyes narrowed. "I thought you were going to help us, not kill us."
Kojak glanced at Demona placing Lexington’s unconscious form into the cage that stood five feet away. "I had no choice, grandfather. Her wisdom will purify this planet and create a better world for our species."
TOM: Their species is pretty much dead anyway.
Once the last human alive is vanquished, we will take our rightful place in this world."
ALL: Yay.
Brooklyn stretched to stand as tall as the cramped cell would allow, which wasn't much. "But, I thought…you wanted to stop her…"
Kojak laughed derisively. "She is right about you. You are a fool!"
CROW: We could have told you that!
He looked away. "Now we have the Phoenix Gate, and your clan is dead. You, your precious Lex, and this lovely female here" He gestured to Angela. "are the last of the gargoyles. There is no one to stop us now!"
MIKE: If they’re the last, how are they going to create a better world for their species?
TOM: Cloning.
CROW: Either that or Demona and Angela are going to become breeders.
Kojak laughed maniacally. "You bastard!" Brooklyn snarled. "I trusted you!"
Kojak grinned wickedly. "You shouldn’t have."
ALL: We could have told you that!!
Brooklyn looked at Angela slumped against the side of the cage depressed. "I thought you told me she died!" Kojak shook his head. "She did die…along with the others in a fight against the Quarrymen after I was born. But, Demona missed her so much, she had Servarius clone her.
TOM: Told you. Cloning is the way of the future.
The Angela you see is not the Angela you knew in your youth."
Brooklyn looked at him wearily. "What is this all about?"
Kojak was arrogantly cocky and it showed. "How inquisitive, grandfather. Snooping your nose where it doesn’t belong. Are you sure you want to know the plan? It’s complicated."
TOM: Cue the evil plan to take over the world.
MIKE: (SINGING.) They’re Pinky! Their Pinky and the Brain, Brain, Brain, Brain, Brain!
CROW: Make him stop!!
"Just tell me. NOW."
Kojak waved a finger mockingly. "Testy, testy, grandpa Brooklyn! If you want to be demanding, we’ll never get anywhere! But all right. It began long ago, after Goliath died and you became leader of your clan…"
TOM: (TIREDLY.) Here we go!
MIKE: Wake me when it’s over.
***
Manhattan, New York
2056 AD.
"Come on, Angela!" Brooklyn urged. "You’re doing great!"
CROW: Just get me off one more time!
MIKE: Crow!
The surrogate mother screamed and panted, her moans echoing off the walls, making her pain evident as she tried to push the egg out of her. It was a special moment for Brooklyn and Lexington, as the two would finally have their own hatchling.
MIKE: There’s something wrong about that.
CROW: There’s something wrong about this whole fic.
TOM: It’s Cobra’s, what do you expect.
CROW: True.
Lexington’s excitement was apparent from the way he kept jumping up and down and squeezing Brooklyn’s hand enthusiastically.
Brooklyn smiled, gently squeezing his lover’s hand, and waited for the pain-racked gargess to give birth. Finally, at long last, the egg pushed itself out of her cavern and Angela flopped back in exhaustion. "Whew!" she gasped. "I never thought it would be so hard!" Thanks, Angela." Brooklyn praised, taking the egg from her and holding the small sickly wet pink shell gently.
MIKE: That’s all the thanks she gets?!
TOM: Brooklyn’s not known for his sensitivity.
"But what do we do with it now?" Angela sat up, wearily. "We can’t let Broadway know about it. He’ll be infuriated. There’s only one option."
"What’s that?" Lexington asked, afraid of the answer.
CROW: Kill it!
TOM: Scramble it!
MIKE: Spoon it!
(THE BOTS LOOK AT HIM STRANGELY.)
"Send it to Avalon, to be cared for by Princess Katherine and Tom. Where it can grow and mature in the honorable Gargoyle way." Angela replied between breaths.
TOM: How poetic.
"No!" Lexington cried, suddenly panic-stricken. "He’s our child! Brooklyn and I will care for it!"
(EVERYONE LAUGHS HYSTERICALLY.)
Angela regarded her old friend. "Neither of you two can have children. You’re both male. What do you think Broadway will say when he sees the egg? He will know that it was not his child with me, and neither of you trust Demona enough to make an egg with her.
MIKE: That’s scary.
CROW: Maybe Lex can have a sex change operation.
MIKE: Maybe you can quit with the sick jokes.
CROW: Never!
MIKE: Exactly.
He’ll know I’m the only female capable of it. Not to mention you two might want your own hatchling. It’s not terribly difficult to figure out, when you do the math."
CROW: One and one makes three!
TOM: He flunked basic math.
"You’re right," Brooklyn admitted. "Then we must go to Avalon, and raise the child ourselves. We will care for it and raise it in the ways of loyalty and protection. It is the Gargoyle way." Lex looked worried.
TOM: Okay, this went from dragging to sappy.
CROW: My stomach can’t take much more of this.
MIKE: You don’t have a stomach.
CROW: Oh, yeah! (PERKS UP.)
"But you are the leader, and I am your second. Who would run the clan in our absence?"
"I will" came a masculine voice from behind them.
TOM: Cue the handsome, assertive, young hero.
Brooklyn and Lex both turned as one to look at Doster, Angela’s son, watching the events bemusedly.
MIKE: Doster?!
CROW: What kind of name is Doster?!
TOM: It’s better then Dumpster.
He was a gray gargoyle who was taller then even Brooklyn and as heavy as Goliath. His head was cropped by peach colored hair that draped over his shoulders.
CROW: You were right. Handsome, assertive, young. You know how to call them Tom.
TOM: It’s a gift.
His dress was more than the usual loincloth.
MIKE: Thank god!
Instead, his wardrobe consisted of an armor chest-plate on his torso and black pants. His dark black wings swept in a skyward motion, like Brooklyn’s. He had Broadway’s facial features, however.
CROW: Aww man! He got stuck with Broadway’s ugly mug! Other then that…
TOM: If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were coming on to him!
CROW: (COUGHS.) Certainly not!
"My pupil," Brooklyn stated hesitantly. "Are you sure you wish to take responsibility for the clan and protect the humans below?"
TOM: Do you feel up to the task Grasshopper?
CROW: Yes Sensei!
TOM: Then from this day forth, you shall be known as…Grubworm!
CROW: Yes, Sens—Hey!
Doster nodded. "I am positive, my leader. It would not be a responsibility. It would an honor. I have never dreamed I would get this moment."
MIKE: (SNORTS.) Yeah, right. He dreams of it every day.
Brooklyn smiled. "Very well. You, Doster, are the Clan’s leader while Lexington and I are in Avalon." Doster nodded, accepting the title.
***
"So, what happened to Doster?" Brooklyn snarled, certain he knew the eager-to-learn gargoyle’s fate but not choosing to express his instinctive expectation.
Kojak smiled cruelly, that mad gleam back in his eyes. "My mother, Alexia, remained on Avalon with you and lover-boy over there until I was hatched. One night, I desired to see the world, and, finding the latin spell, used it to get to Manhattan. You and the other gargoyles there tried to stop me to no avail. Once there, I met up with Demona, and she…" he paused as though to collect his thoughts. "enlightened me."
"After I allied with her, I hunted down your former clan, and challenged Doster to a match to claim leadership of the clan. When he was killed, I took control and melded the clan to follow MY will…"
CROW: I am Kojak of Borg! Resistance is futile.
MIKE: He scares me sometimes.
"You’re sick," Brooklyn muttered.
CROW: No, you’re sick!
TOM: No, you are.
MIKE: No, you both are.
(THE BOTS GRIN INSANELY AT HIM. MIKE SCOOTS DOWN A SEAT.)
Kojak kept ranting, unhearing the accusation.
"…Then, when they questioned me, Demona and I used Xanatos’ Gen-U-Tech to clone the Loch Ness Monster. We used it to attack the city, appearing in the Hudson river and working our way west. We followed by submarine." He skipped gleefully. "Oh, the bloodshed! The madness! The horror!" Kojak was absolutely giddy with insanity.
CROW: (GRINS) I wanna meet this guy! I wanna have that kinda fun too!
MIKE: Not while I’m around, you won’t.
CROW: (GRINS) That can be arranged.
MIKE: Help!
"And why did you need me here?"
Kojak looked thoughtful. "It was Demona’s idea, actually. See, she used the Phoenix Gate to look in the future, when you, yes, YOU, grandfather, arrive to thwart her plans." He looked at his relative. "The only way to keep that from happening was to drag you and Lexington out of the 1990’s, before you went to Avalon, and kill you both."
CROW: So do it already! Stop yaking and get on with it!
Brooklyn couldn’t believe what he was hearing. It was a lot to take in. Time travel, and Loch Ness and cloning? Kojak WAS crazy, after all. Then Brooklyn had a sudden thought. If Kojak had brought him here to die BEFORE going to Avalon, then how was all this happening? Kojak would have never been born because Brooklyn would never have accidentally gotten Angela pregnant.
TOM: Score another one for the hero!
So how could Kojak be here?
Brooklyn realized that his answers would have to wait, though, for Demona chose that moment to appear. "Lexington is dead," she informed him,
(CROW CHEERS.)
ignoring the look of grieving anguish on Brooklyn’s face by raising the laser gun and pointing it at him.
"And you are next."
(CROW CHEERS LOUDLY.)
***
Sitting perched in his cell, watching Lexington in the cage next to his, Brooklyn sighed heavily.
CROW: Damnit! She didn’t kill them! (BOUNCING UP AND DOWN.) I’ll do it myself! Somehow!
MIKE: Chill Crow.
They had been here for hours, and it didn’t look there was any chance of escape. The Angela clone had spent the entire time silently staring out the side of the prison, eyes open, staring at nothing. It was obvious she had deep depressing trauma in her head. Brooklyn shook the bars, hoping to break them. They didn’t give.
He couldn’t believe this was happening. Ever since he and Lexington had arrived, they had found themselves in one predicament after another. This had all started because of that blasted Phoenix Gate. If Kojak had never found it, this would have never happened. Only 24 hours ago, he and Lexington were with the others back in their familiar homestead of Manhattan, and now they were trapped in an alternate dimension with a maniacal gargress and her assistant. How unpleasant.
MIKE: Brooklyn’s sure got a talent for understatement.
"So, that’s it, isn’t it Demona?" Brooklyn growled helplessly from his cage. "Just kill the humans, and our clan, and finish off the survivors?" Demona glared at him in fierce hatred. "You know nothing, my noble warrior. The humans had to pay for what was done so long ago. I threatened to wipe out their unimportant race with nuclear war. But that fool leader of yours stopped me. Futilely. Killing them all and capturing you two are my revenge."
"And you’re going to kill us?"
"Of course I am.
CROW: (BOUNCING.) Do it! DO IT!
MIKE: Crow!
It’ll get you and that miserable little pest out of my way," Demona signaled to Lexington. Brooklyn’s eyes flared. "You’re dead, bitch. I’ll kill you!" Demona laughed, a note of uncertain hesitation in her voice. "You cannot kill me, my friend. I am immortal."
"Says who? The Weird Sisters?"
Demona frowned but said nothing.
Brooklyn looked at the sad looking clone huddled by herself at the opposite end of the cage. "What are you going to do with her?"
CROW: She’s her love slave. Demona’s a lesbian.
MIKE: Okay, I’m dumping your memory the minute we get out of here!
"That," Demona smiled. "is a clone of Angela, made to show me programmed love and cooperation.
CROW: Told you!
Unlike that wretched flesh and blood daughter I had with Goliath! She will be my ally, standing by me in every fight, and become my best warrior."
"Why is she in this cage?"
"She has become somewhat…rebellious. Apparently, it runs on Goliath’s side of the family. She is being contained until her reprogramming is completed."
Brooklyn couldn’t believe his ears. "You…trying to MAKE this thing love you? For what? So she can get killed while you make your escape from some deadly foe?"
Demona shook her head. "Enough talk."
"Fuck you!"
CROW: Please do!
Demona peered in through the bars of the cage, to look into Brooklyn’s snarling face. "So young. So impetuous, and yet he is my greatest foe. I wonder why we did not team up together long ago…"
"I’d rather you kill me…" Brooklyn growled.
CROW: DO IT! DO IT NOW!!!!!!!
(MIKE HITS CROW SO HARD HE FLIES OUT OF HIS SEAT.) WILL YOU SHUT UP!
TOM: My goodness.
(CROW WEAVES HIS WAY BACK TO HIS SEAT AND SITS DOWN QUIETLY.)
Demona pulled her face away and sighed.
"Very well," she answered. "On your head be it."
Demona walked away, and Kojak leered down at his furious relative. "I have a something for you, grandfather." "I don’t want anything from you TRAITOR." Brooklyn sneered. "Are sure?" Kojak persisted. Brooklyn grabbed him by the shirt and pulled, Kojak’s head smacking into the bars.
TOM: Owch!
"Get…away…from…me…NOW."
MIKE: If only we could.
"As you wish…GRANDFATHER." Kojak spit the word like a curse, and before a startled Brooklyn could react, smashed the laser gun across his head. The last thing Brooklyn saw before sliding into that welcomed blackness was the traitorous Kojak laughing wickedly.
CROW: (QUIETLY AND COLDLY.) Please tell me you killed him.
TOM: He’s the hero. He doesn’t die easy.
CROW: Don’t say that!
"I hope you enjoy yourself, Brooklyn." Kojak whispered. Looking before him, checking for any sign of Demona, and finding none, Kojak leaned down, satisfied, and started opening the door to Lexington’s cage.
***
Groaning, his head spinning, feeling racked with pain, Brooklyn opened his eyes and ran his hand on his forehead.
(CROW STARTS MOANING.) Why can't he die?!
"Ow…God, that hurt…" He sat up, sliding back into consciousness and looked around him. Looking to his left, Brooklyn was startled to find Lexington’s cage empty. "Lex?"
There was no answer. The cage was empty. Suddenly growing agitated, Brooklyn leaped to his feet and roared, angered. "LEX!" There was no response. No sound to let him know that his loving, his loyal companion, Lexington was still alive. Save one.
"No need to shout, grandfather," Kojak whispered faintly. "Demona’s sleeping. In the human style. Take him and go!" Brooklyn took Lexington’s unconscious form and helped him stand. "Why are you doing this? Betraying us, then aiding us?" Kojak smiled. "I’ll explain it to you later. Now go!"
MIKE: Okay, now I’m confused.
TOM: What else is new?
MIKE: Hey now!
"What about the clone?!"
"Forget about her. Run!"
"Come on, Lex." Brooklyn hoisted the smaller gargoyle over his shoulder and dashed off frantically. Breaking the door down, Brooklyn winced at the loudness of the security alarms that blared. Noise that loud was sure to wake Demona.
TOM: Brilliant observation.
Looking around for a means of escape, Brooklyn spotted the forest nearby and sprinted towards it.
The hunt had just begun.
***
3006 A.D
TOM: Flash-forward!
Guatemala
The middle-aged gargoyle female raced through the forest, rushing at full speed for dear life. The immortal demon was after her, and she was panicked. Racing through the shrubs, the tree branches snapping at her light brown hair, the panicked Alexia sprinted, her orange skinned legs moving in quiet stealth through the woods. Only fifty feet until she got to the abandoned army base.
MIKE: Does anyone know what this has to do with the story?
TOM: Cobra might tell us.
Only minutes ago, Alexia had witnessed Demona murder her mate, Steppenwolf, who was the leader of the Guatemalan clan.
MIKE: Okay, the kinda explains it.
She had observed Demona beat the hell out of him with her fists, kicking him when his knees had given in and he had collapsed. She had watched in silent horror as Steppenwolf’s blue tinged flesh turned bright red under the ignited flame, caused by the gasoline and the match that had been flung onto his body.
CROW: Weee! I love bonfires!
TOM: You love fire period.
(CROW DOES BEAVIS AND BUTTHEAD IMPRESSION.)
Then, she had ran, not wanting to see Steppenwolf’s charred corpse. She had ran faster when she realized that the demon had heard her and was chasing after her even now.
If only she had the Phoenix Gate! Then she could’ve gone back and changed all this, to keep it from ever happening. But alas, Alexia had been so gripped with fear, that she’d forgotten she had had it.
TOM: Naturally.
And now it was too late. Alexia searched the pockets of her long Guatemalan robe, but could not find it. The Phoenix Gate had been dropped somewhere in the forest, and she was not about to go look for it. Not with the demon still about.
After twenty minutes of running, panting heavily, gasping for air, Alexia stopped to rest, no longer caring about anything. Not the demon. Not the Gate. Not even her own life. All that mattered to her was that Kojak had gotten away. Luckily, for her son, the Demon gargoyle had never laid eyes upon him, missed seeing his escape mere seconds before her attack. Perhaps someday Kojak would be get revenge upon Demona and end the threat forever.
CROW: Or maybe he’ll betray you and ally with Demona.
Alexia prayed inwardly that she would live long enough to see that day.
Turning back to her run, preparing to race for her life once more, Alexia moved forward, and that was when the demon leaped in front of her, brandishing a long wooden spear. It was an old spear, one that had belonged to Steppenwolf. Now, it belonged to Demona. Alexia opened her mouth and screamed, too drained to fight, but energized enough to get a warning to her son if he was still in the area.
Her scream was cut off by the spear plunging into her heart.
(CROW BOUNCES HAPPILY.) Blood! Gore! Hehehehe!
TOM: I worry about him sometimes.
MIKE: You and me both.
***
3009 A.D.
TOM: Flash-forward!
Guatemala
Brooklyn panted, out of breath and out of strength. Due to the large branches of the trees, which all slapped together into one inevitable maze of leaves, neither gargoyle could get enough height to glide, so he and Lex, still draped over the red Gargoyle’s shoulder, unconscious, for the good part of two hours now, ducking between trees and searching for an exit from the forest. Where the hell was it?
TOM: This looks familiar.
CROW: Maybe Brooklyn with get a spear through his heart like Alexia.
Nestled safely behind the tree, out of view of their predator, Brooklyn peered out to observe a ranting Demona plow through the woods, blasting trees and other plant life to pieces with her laser cannon, searching for them both.
MIKE: She’s got all the grace and poise of a bulldozer.
"When I find you, my friends!" He heard Demona’s enraged scream. "I will annihilate you both!"
TOM: Yup. No grace there.
Brooklyn dropped down, disappearing from view again, and knelt by Lex’s side. He began slapping Lex’s cheeks with his palms gently yet quickly. "Wake up, Lex," he urged desperately, keeping his voice so as to avoid being heard. "You’ve got to wake up!"
Tom: (AS LEX) No I don’t. You can carry me!
Almost as if on cue, Lex groaned and opened his eyes. His pupils dilated rapidly, then rose upwards to settle on Brooklyn’s relieved face. "Wha-what happened?" The green gargoyle slurred, raising one hand to his pain-wracked forehead. Brooklyn, thankful for Lex’s safety, embraced his rookery brother, kissing him briefly on the lips before pulling away.
MIKE: Ugh.
"Demona happened, that’s what."
Lex stared at his mate for a few seconds, trying to make sense of his words. Then everything came back to him, and Lex jumped straight up, nearly knocking Brooklyn off his feet. "Kojak! Where’s Kojak?!"
"He’s back there," Brooklyn tossed his head back in the direction of the base. "With the clone." Lex’s face twisted into a scowl of despising. "Kojak will die for his betrayal," the olive webbed-wing gargoyle promised.
TOM: That’s usually Goliath’s line.
MIKE: Lex is filling in for him in this story since he’s a walking vegetable now.
"Lex… Kojak saved us."
Lex’s reaction was that of shock. "What? Why?"
Brooklyn shrugged. "When things were going bad for us back there, he helped free us. The only reason I can think of for that is that he’s a double agent, tricking both us and Demona into making him an ally, when in truth, he was a wild card all along."
MIKE: Or maybe he’s just burning the candle at both ends.
CROW: Did that once. Got singed fingers.
MIKE: Only you, Crow…
Lexington absorbed all that, then responded. "So what do we do now?"
TOM: Run.
MIKE: Hide.
CROW: Die.
Brooklyn had no answer.
CROW: We just gave you three!
***
Kojak couldn’t help but grin wickedly as he worked the controls. It had been such an easy thing, deceiving Demona into allying herself with him, though it had been even easier tricking his ancestors. For Kojak, there was no greater thrill then playing back-stabber.
CROW: I like stabbing things too!
MIKE: Stay away from me.
For the murder of his mother, he would have revenge. Kojak overrode the security restrictions, setting the energy weapon at maximum power, which in turn overloaded the machine. The only thing that would stop the machine from blowing was an activation button that he would press, a switch that would send both the base and Demona’s scheme into ashes.
CROW: Yay! Explosions!
But he would have to wait for her to be in here, and for his grandparents to be gone first. Kojak waited patiently, knowing that they would be back soon, and then, his revenge would be complete. Alexia’s murder would be avenged.
Even if it meant blowing himself up with the base.
CROW: Yay!
***
Brooklyn and Lexington sprinted through the vegetation, using stealth and camouflage to their advantage. This forest was so dense and heavy with trees that Demona wouldn’t even spot them, not even if she had been standing five feet away. Thank god for that.
CROW: I will not! I want you to die!
The gargoyles moved quickly, rushing back to the exit door of the base. Traitor or not, Kojak was still family, still blood, and Brooklyn was not going to let him get killed just for heroism.
MIKE: Great. He betrays them but they still go back in after him. What idiots.
TOM: That’s heroes for you.
CROW: Maybe they’ll get blown up too.
The beaked gargoyle vowed to save his grandson if he could. Once inside, they separated to search the building. Lex headed into the war room.
Glancing around, Lex spotted him first. Kojak was standing in the middle of the room, his taloned finger lightly pressed onto a blue switch.
CROW: I thought self-destruct buttons were supposed to red.
Lexington frowned, trying to understand what the young gargoyle was doing,
CROW: He’s pushing a button!
then it struck him, and he yelled for Brooklyn, who, finished with checking out the lab, rushed in, and saw Kojak, poised and ready to deactivate the nuke.
CROW: Wrong button you moron! You’re supposed to blow up everything!
MIKE: Simmer down Crow.
"Kojak!" Brooklyn yelled. "What are you doing?!"
Kojak smiled sadly at his grandfather, for what he knew would be the very last time.
CROW: Yay! They’re all going to die!
MIKE: You’re obsessed, you know that?
CROW: (GRIN) Yup!
"I’m going to die here, Brooklyn! It’s the right thing for me to do!"
CROW: Finally someone who talk sense!
TOM: What is it about heroes who think blowing themselves up is a good thing?
MIKE: All brawn, no brains.
"You’re all going to die here," a silkily familiar voice answered.
CROW: Yay!!
All three turned as Demona entered, wielding her laser. "Thank you for the run," she said, addressing the Wyvern gargoyles. "Never have I had such a well-deserved workout. I almost feel bad that I have to kill you."
CROW: (SNARLING.) Stop posturing and do it!
"Not today," Brooklyn answered, pulling out the Phoenix gate, which Kojak had slipped to him during the escape.
CROW: (BOUNCING.) DAMN DAMN DAMN DAMN!!!!
MIKE: Calm down Crow!
CROW: I will not calm down!! Every time a villain starts to kill Brooklyn he always gets the last minute save! It’s not FAIR!!!
MIKE: It’s called "plot".
"Nooo!" Demona screeched, trying to grab the artifact from the brick red hand that held it, but Kojak grabbed her from behind, wrapping his arms around her tightly, making escape impossible. Demona struggled, and Kojak threw her across the room, where Demona hit the wall, and rolled to the floor, dazed.
MIKE: Go Kojak!
TOM: Uhh…he’s the bad guy.
MIKE: Oh.
Brooklyn looked at his descendant, who now stood proudly, like what the humans would call a "marine".
CROW: And this robot is becoming what humans call "suicidal".
MIKE: You’re not that far gone yet.
Brooklyn nodded at the cascade of Phoenix Gates all resting on Demona’s shelf, a huge collection of a hundred or more. "Kojak! Are these all of them?!"
"Yes, they are!"
Brooklyn nodded. "I knew it."
MIKE: How could he possibly know that?
TOM: He’s a hero.
MIKE: Oh.
"Good," Brooklyn mumbled, grabbing Lex by the arm and pulling him gently into the path of the Phoenix flame while he spoke the words to take them back home, the words that were now be their escape from this place forever.
"Des La Grate Mauri Tempi Et Intervalia!"
MIKE: Shouldn’t that be "Deflagrate Muri Tempi Et Intervalia"?
TOM: Since when do you speak Latin?
Mike: (SMIRK) You’d be surprised.
CROW: Great. Now the monkey can speak a dead language. When he learns English I’ll be impressed.
(WHAP!)
"Goodbye, Brooklyn," Kojak spoke quickly before the flame settled down on Brooklyn and Lexington, "And thank you for your help."
Brooklyn smiled and then they were gone.
Kojak moved his finger back over the blue button on the control panel, smirking down at the gargoyle, who looked up at him, dazedly. "Well, Demona, your prey escaped, all the artificial Phoenix gates will be destroyed, and your plans are in ruins, not to mention that my mother’s death by you will solicited at long last."
TOM: Is his grocery list finished?
CROW: Yup. Time to pay the cashier.
"Your… mother?"
"Yes, my mother," And now Kojak’s voice rose, taking a tone of rage. "You speared her in the chest! She died at your hands! And now," he pressed the button down, "It’s payback time."
TOM: Good line!
CROW: Very heroish.
MIKE: Excellent timing.
Demona lunged to attack him, just as there was a hiss and a loud flow of smoke and the base exploded.
CROW: I love explosions!
***
CROW: Damn! I’m seeing stars!
MIKE: That was from when I hit you that last time.
Manhattan, 2001
The clan, gathered on the parapets, deep in sorrow over the loss of two of their own, looked up in surprise at the Phoenix flame dipping onto the stone floor, and then it was gone, leaving only two very tired gargoyles in its’ wake.
Tom: (RICKY RICARDO VOICE.) Honey! I’m home!
Goliath could not believe his eyes. "Brooklyn? Lexington? But how did--?"
Brooklyn got to his feet, as did his lover. Brooklyn smiled and took Lex’s hand as he shifted his friendly gaze to Goliath. He was glad to be back home. They both were, but it had been too long of a night for Brooklyn and Lexington to explain every detail. Right now, they just needed some rest.
CROW: And we could use some relief from this fic.
MIKE: I just need relief.
TOM: Eww!
And maybe a little bit of sex, too.
ALL: EEEWWWWWWWWW!
"It’s a long story, Goliath," he responded. "One you’ll hear after we rest for a day."
The End.
ALL: YAY!
So… any thoughts? Reviews? It feels so good to finally close this series. Now it’s time for your fans to do your share. You know what I’m talking about. All thoughts on this fic, and the "Dark Side Of The Phoenix Gate" series in general are welcome at my email address: [email protected]
CROW: Yay! I’m off to email bomb land!
Until my next fic, take care!
TOM: Where should we take her?
KingCobra_582.
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