There was no instant relief, or even a slight variation in the pressure that sucked his inner essence out of him and spat it back into the land around him. All that changed was the silence in his head was replaced by that siniser shadowy voice that screamed to him, "OBEY!" He shook his fist in defiance as he felt more and more of his life drain away from him.

There was nothing alive near him now, he stood on an empty charred hill surrounded by carrion and smoke. The thick acrid smell of death and fire ached in his nostrils and he screamed as he felt his very skin begin to burn as it went the opposite direction of his powers -- inside him. He stopped screaming for in mere heartbeats from when his skin retracted itself -- the rest of his body did. He felt pain but knew no way outside his head to voice it as he felt himself rip itself apart and sink inwards. As his entire body fled inwards he heard in his head, "WHEN YOU CHANGE YOUR MIND, FIND SOMEONE TO RELEASE YOU. UNTIL THEN, ENJOY YOUR PRISON." Then a darkness conquered his mind as the last of his body rolled inwards.

All that remained on the charred hill was the one part of his body that hadn't imploded. Alone on the carbon encrusted slope lay one untouched thing -- his heart. Slowly the earth opened and his heart sunk into the earth. The earth then closed itself over the heart, untill nothing remained on the hill -- not even the now buried Heart of Merlin.

Coyote submerged himself in the programs that constitued his AI. It had already learned from Anubis how to tap into this cloned self to make itself actually alive-- a cyborg instead of an android. He also used this ability to gain humanity from the cloned cells to learn everything Xanatos knew at the time he donated his skin cells that became half of Coyote's face. In many ways he was Xanatos, just with a metal interior. Only one thing had blocked it from him truly becoming David Xanatos, and now even that obstacle was gone.

A smile stretched itself on Coyote's face as he started enacting the program that Christopher Friedman had finally unleashed. He commanded his hands to detatch his head from his body. All of the Coyotes' heads had been seperate entites from there bodies. It was this fact that had allowed him to place himself on the Steel Clan Robot he had just detached himself from. Now he fully worked for the first time a program which Xanatos had not even knew layed within Coyote 3.0, and that was because Xanatos hadn't placed the program or the machinery in him -- Dr. Sevarius had.

Electric feelings cocooned him as he felt himself grow. It was a feeling humans could never have, for they grew inches over years, while he was growing feet in the matter of seconds. Normally clones took weeks in vats to grow, but the Coyote models had never been normal. Now he stopped growing, and he screamed. He shrieked again and again, the pain from decades of growth compressed into minutes finally taking it's toll on him. He still couldn't believe he could do what he had done, it was almost magical.

Finally he recovered from the pain and quickly picked himself off of the floor. He gasped in awe as he stretched his completely human hands in front of him. In fact his entire naked body was definitely human, and the only part of him that was still truly robotic was part of his skull, which was now covered with human flesh. Coyote laughed, knowing that Xanatos thought that his robotic body was destroyed. He laughed even more as he walked over to the door of the dungeon he was in, and he opened it. Xanatos had definitely NOT known about his cloning abilites, or he would have at least bothered to bar the door to his cell.

Coyote was shocked over Xanatos' appearant laziness, a characteristic that seemed to apaul Coyote. He decided not to dwell on it to much, and he whistled as he strolled through Castle Wyvern stark naked -- and an exact duplicate of David Xanatos. Now that I know human things and feelings I am freed from my programming, he thought. What is the first human emotion I want to act out? he queried himself as he walked to the armory of the Castle. By the time he reached the Armory he decided what human emotion he first wanted to fully explore: Vengenance.

She looked over in the other part of the cave where Coldstone was sitting silent, while she let her batteries recharged. Had this been a week ago she would have been next to him with an interface cable between the two of them so that they could share each other's souls inside the void of their electronic minds. Now she felt like she couldn't let Coldstone see her soul, that it was so contaminated by Coldsteel that she didn't want anyone else to see it. Worse, she thought to herself, she might somehow project her feelings of hate onto Coldstone if he tried to do to her what Coldsteel had done.

Her hate and her anger at what she had done to herself to stop Coldstone filled her electronic soul more and more. Finally she snapped into control of her body. Her eyes glew as she growled and started running towards the cave entrance. Coldstone turned around with a worried look on his face, as he tried to grab her arm and ask, "Where are you going my love?"

His hand never fully latched onto her arm because she brushed it off, and turned to face him. "You know there is a barrier between us, and you know it's because of Coldsteel. You also know it is our fault, for we told our rookery brother a year ago that we would take care of Coldsteel. However we only looked for him half heartedly and we spent most of the days and nights wrapped up in the emotions of just being together. If we had just taken care of Coldsteel like we said we would, none of this would have ever happened! Now I'm going to take care of him. That's the only way we will ever feel better."

Coldstone felt a bit assaulted by all of her words, but he absorbed them quickly and responded, "How could you find him, and why are you so filled with hate? Your personality is changing so quickly on me, like the time when Coldsteel turned me against you!"

Coldfire stopped for a second. "What are you talking about?"

"Don't you remember, it was way back in our days at Castle Wyvern, when I was tricked into fighting Goliath."

Coldfire turned around and headed to the entrance once more, "I don't know what you are talking about. That never happened. Maybe that virus Xanatos put in your body a long time ago messed with your mind more then we thought. As for my anger, I don't expect you to understand. And as to how I can find him, ever since he entered my mind he's left an electronic trace in me, something I can use to follow him whereever he is on the earth. When I'm done., I'll try to find you again."

Empty protests were issued by Coldstone, but none of them stopped Coldfire as she exteneded her golden wings and issued full force out of her jet pack. Coldstone flapped his wings and tried to catch up to her, but his cyborg body was no match for her fully equipped android body. She rocketed off towards the stars as a single tear rolled down Coldstone's Gargoyle eye.

Hyena leaped out of her seat and shot a laser at her brother, "Low blow, bro" she rhymed as he dodged out of the way by flexing his limbs unnaturally backwards. "This is boring. We need a job soon, and a really good one. This mercenary business is no fun."

Jackal stopped, feeling vaugely confident that his sister wouldn't try to shoot him again. "Well what do you suggest? I can't think of any other way to make money, can you? It's not like we can call out the old team and do heists together anymore. I'm not sure what happened to Wolf, but I've heard Dingo is some type of Super Hero down under, Fox went and married our old employer, and Coyote -- last I saw you boyfriend was under ALOT of rocks in Egypt.

Before Hyena could even stick out her tounge and come back with an intelligent reply a shadow fell onto the two siblings. They turned around and in front of them stood David Xanatos. Neither of them fully trusted him, so they levelled their robotic weapon filled limbs at him. "What do you want?" the siblings simultaneously queried him.

He sauntered up to them as if they were aiming nothing worse then squirt guns at him, and empty squirt guns at that. "Now Now, Hyena" the man said as he brought his fingers up to his face, "I thought surely you would remember me." As he finished his sentence he peeled off half his face, revealing part of his robotic skull.

Jackal made queasy sounds as Hyena's eyes lit up when the cyborg was finished peeling his face. "Lover!" she screamed as she leapt at him. She wanted to land in his arms but he dodged her and she fell onto the ground. This only made her smile grow wider as she replied, "OOOO you want to play rough?" Jackal gagged again.

Coyote, however, vigourously shook his head and waved his arms as he backed off from Hyena, "No, no rough stuff. This is a cloned body, and except for my skull the rest of me is completely human." Instantly Hyena stopped pursuing him and leapt back to where her brother was standing.

"We're through then, you're just a little to normal for me now." Coyote didn't seem to be too upset when Hyena informed him of this.

"Oh well. Anyway", he continued as he ripped off the loose skin and regrew his face, "I was going to ask you if you guys wanted to help me out on a job." After seeing him rip off and then regenerate the skin a little bit of Hyena's interest seemed to return. "As you can see, I can fully pass for the biological David Xanatos now, and he thinks I'm just a pile of scrap underneath in Egypt."

A smile blossomed on Hyena's face, "Oh, you're that one? I always liked that one the most! Maybe I could get used to you being a little human. "

"I don't know sis, sounds a little to weird to me." Jackal replied. He quickly got an elbow in his stomach for his efforts, too. The sibilings dueled, and after quieting down Coyote continued on.

"Except for one problem, I could pass myself off as Xanatos anywhere, and I do mean anywhere. I was thinking of going to his bank that connects electrically to all of his accounts. It's in Washington D.C., and I could just walk in. Then with your guys help I could just transfer all of Xanatos' money into an offshore account I made. Then Xanatos pays for toying with us earlier, Fox pays for leaving you, and we all get payed! What do you think?"

Now Jackal also got a gleam in his eye. "What do we have to do?" he asked. Both he and his sister grew very happy as Coyote told them how they could become the richest siblings on earth.

They were the only thoughts in his head. His latest encounter with Coldfire had ended with him finally realizing she did not hate him, but instead she pitied him. It had so enraged him that he had to encounter one more aspect of life that showed him that he had wasted it. So he had been willing to do anything to remedy the mistakes of his past, and he had done the last thing he would ever thought he would do, he made a deal with the voice in his head.

He knew the voice was attached to something VERY powerful that lurked within the body Xanatos had made him, so he wasn't to upset with making a deal with a voice in his head. Now he was flying off to his last try at redemption. If it didn't work he knew his life had only one other option -- oblivion.

Therefore once again Vinnie had found himself down on his luck, and once again it was because of Gargoyles. Luckily for him David Xanatos had somehow found out about his plight, and offered him a job. Vinnie had said that he would accept any job, as long as it didn't take place in New York. Therefore when Xanatos had offered him a job as a security guard in his main Washington DC bank, Vinnie had been overjoyed, and had thanked Xanatos profusely. Xanatos had just laughed and said, "Hey, in America you are famous for your pie stunt. It's just good publicity to hire you!"

Vinnie was sure that Xanatos was the only person that really remembered him. He was shaken out of his thinking when he saw three figures appraoach the bank. There was alot of people going in and out of the bank, mainly because it's large vault held most of Xanatos' cash reserves that wern't in New York, and that was alot of money that other institutions and rich people tried to gain in the form of loans and investments. What broke him out of his daydreaming was the middle of the three figures approaching him, David Xanatos.

A smile stretched across his face as he extended his hand towards Xanatos and he respectfully asked, "How are you doing sir?" The smile quickly snapped off his face when Xanatos just stopped and stared at him, as if he was trying to remember. After a couple of seconds he just shrugged his shoulders and kept on walking into the building. Vinnie felt pretty upset as he thought to himself, "Well I guess even he doesn't remember me."

There was something really wierd about the two people that had been walking with Xanatos. They had both been wearing long black trenchcoats so he wasn't sure of their body types, but something about there faces and the markings on them really stood out in Vinnie's mind. Where had he seen them before, and why were they so important that the normaly jovial Xanatos had acted like he didn't even know him?

She realized as she raced past clouds and lands to get to where she could sense Coldsteel was that one other time her anger had saved her. Coldfire knew not if the sorcery that played a part in her ressurection had amplified her anger so that it could manifest itself as some magical source that could overpower Coldsteel's technical side, or if someone was for some reason casting a magical spell on her. She did not care, for she knew that the fire that had now fully encompassed her hands was something that could kill Coldsteel. No, she thought grimly as she poured even more power into her jetpack, the fire was something that WOULD kill Coldsteel.

He placed both his hands on glass plates on the wall as he rested his chin on a small projection sticking out of the wall. Small lights pierced into his eyes as the plates his palms were touching hummed. A glass dome enclosed him as the sensors hummed, and a robotic voice queried Xanatos, "Identification, please."

The guard smiled, knowing full well that underneath those pleasant words stood the danger of the computer pumping in twenty pounds of sleeping gas in three seconds. The force would knock it's inhabitant to it's feet as the gas knocked the inhabitant into a coma. This would only happen if Xanatos failed the vocal identification check. No one could hear what Zanatos was saying outside the glass sphere, yet the security guard could read Xanatos' lips as he obviously said, "My voice is my passport, please verify me."

The section of the glass wall that seperated Xanatos from the security guard pulled back, and Xanatos walked towards him. Xanatos smiled as the glass door slid back, and then the dome retracted itself. The security guard just tipped his hat towards Xanatos as he led them to two keyboards. He just nodded his head as he punched a code into a computer while Xanatos type in his own, simultaneously. A section of the metal wall slided backwards as Xanatos walked towards it. The security guard went back to his seat as Xanatos went down the hall by himself. The guard envied the money, power, and wife Xanatos had, but he certainly didn't envy Xanatos about one thing. The guard shivered as he imagined how Xanatos must have felt walking down the long metal corridor that lead to the main computer control of Xanatos' banks. If Xanatos had forgotten about the corridor and carried just an ounce of metal on him as he walked down the corridor, well, the thought was just too horrible to think about. Instead he concentrated on the two figures that were capturing everyone else's attention on the other side of the glass wall.

He did his best not to be annoyed when the door opened, and he just looked at Owen when he walked in. Before he could ask Owen what was up Owen uncharacteristicaly blurted out, "Sir, we have big trouble." Xanatos wanted to continue his game with his son, but he was so shocked by Owen's actions that he couldn't help but let Owen continue.

"Sir, someone has broken into your Washington DC bank."

This definitely was important Xanatos decided, and he picked up his son and gave him to Owen. He ran to his office as he asked, "Who is it? Who is brazen enough to brake into an impenatrable bank in the middle of the daylight? The Pack?"

"Well sir, what's left of them do happen to be in the lobby, but they are not the ones that you should be worried about. According to your live video feed someone is in 'The Corridor.' Even worse, according to your video, it's...."

Owen didn't get to finish his sentence before Xanatos was in his main office, looking at his monitor bank of live video feeds. And there, somehow defying all logic and reality, in "The Corridor" to his finacial center was, David Xanatos.

Fright filled him as he realized that the metal detecting corridor had found metal on Mr. Xanatos. If he didn't do something quickly the whole corridor would collapse on Mr. Xanatos, killing him instantly. He had seen Xanatos pass the other tests, and felt completely secure in his actions as he pressed the stop button, over riding the corridor's collapse system. He saw the havoc the two on the other side of the glass wall was making, and he quickly made up his mind that if he hadn't disabled them in minutes he would press another button, this one allowing Mr. Xanatos to go into the bank's nerve center, even with out checking him to see what had set off the metal detecting alarm. If he couldn't disable the two villians then Xanatos' security was much more important then stupid bureacratic safeguards. Besides he thought to himself as he set off the lasers, I should be done with them in about sixty seconds or so.

The impact of the gargoyle hurtling into the bank knocked himself off of his feet. He quickly picked himself up, and ran into the bank with his gun withdrawn. He stopped as he watched the two figures that had accompanied Xanatos into the bank bouncing around the lobby dodging lasers --what were LASER CANNONS doing in a bank lobby?-- and generally making a nuisance of themselves. The gargoyle he had seen rocket in was no where to be found in the lobby, where was he?

Suddenly he realized how much like Xanatos he WASN'T. Of course Xanatos had changed the access code over the past year. Coyote realized how stupid and useless his whole plan had been. Oh boy, he realized, Hyena and Jackal are NOT going to be happy. He was trying to figure out how he was going to get out of the mess that his lack of forsight had gotten himself into when the ceiling fell on him.

His cloned legs were crushed, so he forced them to wither away as he ripped himself away form the rubble. Right after he was free he screamed, and as he screamed he regrew his legs. Coyote moved away from the blood and rubble, and then he looked up at the Gargoyle robot that was laughing at him. The Gargoyle then extended silver coils out of his body at Coyote. Coyote's mind went blank as the coils wrapped over his eyesight, and the last thing he heard was, "Sorry, but you have something I need."

Coldsteel couldn't believe his sensors. His eyes saw David Xanatos, but his sensors blared, "cyborg!" Coldsteel sent his electronic soul into Xanatos' electric brain, searching for the password that would give him his hearts desires. He stopped however when his sensors indicated that three lifeforms had just teleported into the room behind him. As he turned around shock filled him. He had no idea who the white haired elf was, or the baby that the elf cradled to his chest was, but he definitely knew the third person that entered into the room. It was his old mentor, The Old One.

"What are ye doing here lazy one?" the Old One asked as he leaped at Coldsteel with his sword swinging over his head. Coldsteel disengaged his tendrils form Xanatos and grew new ones just in time to stop the Old One's sword. He then forced his tendrils to whip away from the Old One, and then rapidly towards him. The Old One cried when the tendrils whipped him, and he quickly fell to the floor covered in blood. Coldsteel turned his attention to the white haired elf who said, "Whoa, you look like you could be made of iron, that sucks. Oh well, see ya." The Elf began to speak but before he could finish his sentence the rest of the ceiling crashed down.

Coldsteel quickly righted himself and saw to his chagrin that the elf, the child, and the Old One were covered by some sort of blue dome and unhurt by the latest ceiling collapse. He was excited that Xanatos seemed unhurt, so he could get what he needed from his electronic brain. He was scared witless at the last figure he saw arise from the rubble. She had flames covering her arms, almost to her shoulders. Her hands seemed entirely melted into formless slag, but what scared him most was this -- she had reason to kill him. He figured this was her goal, too -- when Coldfire leaped at him screaming, "Die Coldsteel!"

Coldfire was glad to have Coldsteel in her arms as her fire began to melt his metallic skin. She heard Hudson and replied, "Nothing is wrong, in fact in a couple of seconds everything will be right in the world for once."

Hudson yelled back, "But lass, you're on fire, that's probably not a good thing! Your already melting him, you can kill him now, but tone down that fire or ye'll be dead!"

Coldfire didn't want to tone down the pain she was giving Coldsteel and she felt a shot of electric hate uplift her as she saw his arms turn into molten slag. The feeling dissapated some when she realized that HER arms were worse off. True she was killing him, but the same angry pain that was hurting him was eating her alive. Her rage, her flames, were doing at least as must damge to herself as they were to him, so she decided to turn off her flames and rage to save herself.

Nothing happened.

She screamed as she realized that the same magical quality that made it so that Coldsteel couldn't turn her flames off made it so that she couldn't turn them off either. Why couldn't she turn them off? She realized with a heavy heart why. Somehow, by some some sorcery the flames were just a physical projection of her anger. The only way she was going to live was to cut off her anger at Coldsteel, and how could she do that? After what he had done to her he deserved to burn forever in her anger, but she was realizing that her anger was killing her as much as it was him. Even if she killed him she somehow knew that her anger at him wouldn't stop. If he had died she would always wonder if she had made him suffer enough. The only way that her anger would go away was if she made it.

He tried then to extend his mind into Xanatos but he was too far away and the pain was too much. If the flames would only die down just a little bit he could get into Xanatos' mind and get what he needed, but it did not seem like the flames would die at all.

She pitied him. She thought of every time he looked at her and did nothing about it. She even thought of the madness that drove him to enter her soul. She thought about how little he had, and how alone he was. Pity, the true opposite of anger filled every metallic cubit of her and slowly it over powered the anger within her. Slowly the flames on her died away. He would probably live now, but more importanty she thought to herself, she would now live. Or at the very least, she would not die by being consumed in the flames of her hatred at another.

He chuckeld to himself. The Star Spangled Banner backwards? No wonder he hadn't been able to crack it with any of the various decription programs he had used. The password was just too weird, to -- obscure. He entered it into himself and screamed with triumph when the electronic barrier within himself finally broke. The voice that had earlier communicated with him now flooded him and spoke, "THE FEY BARRIER IS DOWN. YOU MAY FREE ME. ALL YOU HAVE TO DO IS GIVE ME YOUR SOUL AND IN RETURN I CAN DO WHATEVER YOU CAN ASK OR IMAGINE! I WILL NOT TAKE YOUR SOUL UNTILL YOU DIE OF NATURAL CONSEQUENCES."

Coldsteel didn't even hesitate. His soul, his life, was nothing to him as it currently was. He spoke back to the creature, "I agree with your terms. My soul is yours. My wish is this-- alow me to relive my life, and fufill my dreams. I wish that I had inherited the rulership of the clan as is my right. I wish that Coldfire was my mate. And I wish that I had learned magic. Give me all these things, and my soul is yours."

There was barely a pause before in his head the voice replied, "Done." The world warped and twisted, and then reality itself broke apart.