He stared at the clouds for if he looked to the side of him he would see his love with her love. Arm in arm they would walk, his gray-blue wings casually touching her brown ones. She barely knew that HE existed for she was to wrapped up in the eyes of his laconic rookery brother who was friends with Goliath so he was friends with the whole clan.

No one even thought to make him the liaison with humans, or that he would make a naturally better ruler then Goliath. The Old One -- who used to rule the clan -- had taught him war back when Goliath was courting his mate. She of the red hair had pushed Goliath to take the reigns of leadership that rightfully belonged not in Goliath’s hands but in HIS.

HE watched the two gargoyles --the gray-blue and the brown-- fly up to the rim of the castle. Tonight the Vikings would probably come once more to attack and Goliath would have them defend it again as he went out and did his own thing. HE unfolded his wings and gently beat them as he flew to the top of the castle. A single tear rolled down his cheek as he realized he never had a chance with HER, to rule the clan, or to learn magic. The reasons for following orders and staying with the clan were disappearing with his dreams, and HE knew one day he would do that which a Gargoyle would never do, leave the clan.

With a soft thumping noise he landed on the northernmost stone tower on the castle. He would not betray the clan, he was not evil, but he would take upon himself the worst of all Gargoyle punishments upon himself, exile. HE knew that he did not see it as a punishment though, but a way to grow. Goliath and even the Old One’s ways were quite stifling, and silly customs of theirs, such as the lack of names were ludicrous in his eyes. Before the last English clan had been destroyed HE and the Old One had visited one. The clan had customs quite unlike the Castle Wyvern clan, including their own names! He had been thrilled when he had found this out yet the Old One had made him promise not to tell the others of this. For the sake of Humility, the old one had said, no Gargoyle in his clan would have their own name, that was a Human thing to do, not a Gargoyle thing. Goliath had kept this tradition, except for his own case.

HE smiled at this hypocrisy just as the first rays of the rising sun began to touch him. It was just another reason for him to leave the clan, and he planned to do it after these Vikings were repelled. In fact, HE thought to himself, I can start my little defiance right now by giving myself a name. I’ll keep it to myself so as not to outwardly betray Goliath, but inside of me I’ll no that I am truly my own Gargoyle, not one bound by Goliath and his ways. As the Stone Sleep set upon him he created a name for himself -- Iago.

It had not always been that way, for once she and her mate Coldstone had been completely Gargoyles, but that was a millennia ago. A night of betrayal had ended her access to flesh and Coldstone’s to hers. A combination of sorcery and science had revived Coldstone in the cyborg body he now inhabited, and it had pulled her and someone else with her into Coldstone’s cyborg body. Coldstone and his love had no problem inhabiting the same body, but the one that had been brought with her had. He had always been distant from the rest of the clan, and he had always scared her with the way he had looked at her. Even though none but Goliath had names she could have sworn while the three of them inhabited the virtual reality void of Coldstone’s body that the other had called himself Iago.

She smiled as she sensed a thin cable extending from the back of Coldstone’s robotic side into a slot behind her ear. She smiled more as she felt a current shoot down that wire and soon Coldstone’s intelligence was in her robotic body. The current body she resided in was an android made for her by Xanatos as a gift. It had taken the two lovers a week to realize that they could still mingle their essences in the virtual void due to a pair of interface cables Xanatos had supplied with the body. She shivered thinking that the one she knew as Iago probably had the same power for he too inhabited a robotic body-- his was named Coldsteel.

Oh she wished his soul could have disappeared in the void outside of Coldstone’s body when she had gained her current body. Puck had reassured them that he could never have gotten the one she now thought of as Coldsteel out of Coldstone’s body without Coldsteel’s consent, and Coldsteel would have of course never opted for self oblivion. Until this millennia Coldsteel had never done anything outright traitorous, yet even before the Viking attack when other gargoyles had seen him they had thought in their mind “traitor!” After all, a loner to a culture that stresses clan as much as the Wyvern gargoyles did was only one step away from being a traitor. Coldfire smiled and sighed as she saw Coldstone approach her with in her Virtual Mind. She stopped thinking of philosophy and set her android body on auto pilot as she pulled her senses inward and into Coldstone’s mind that was in hers.

Normally Xanatos was a very composed man, and he was renowned in the business world not only for his ability to turn anything to his advantage but his ability to keep his head even as well. However, one thing that upset him very much was things that were wasted. When one spent as much time putting plans into reality as much as Xanatos did one would expect SOME kind of payback or reward for all of them. True, he could stage a breakout just to clear a loved one’s record, or stage intricate charades and in the process do things that looked like waste to an outsider, but to him he always got some compensation for his efforts. And now his table was soaked with an overturned coffee mug’s contents.

It was not -- of course -- the overturned coffee mug that upset him, that had happened because of his outburst. No, what had angered him was what he had always feared from waste -- a backfiring of a plan. Almost a year ago he had arranged for Coldstone’s inhabitants to get their own bodies. At the time he had done it for two reasons; 1)to thank the gargoyles for saving his son, and 2)to further the general purposes of David Xanatos -- i.e., gain power.

Before his son all that had mattered to him was to gain power. True, he had a human side, he was not a monster after all. He had a wife and even a good friend, Owen, and he even cared about the people that worked for him. It was just that what he had cared about MOST had been power because he was quite good at obtaining it and keeping hold of it. His son had changed that and truly taught him what it meant to love someone more then anything else, yet it had taken a while for that to happen, and when he had made Coldfire and Coldsteel’s bodies he had still not completely converted.

Therefore he had still seen the Gargoyles as a threat to both him and his power, and he had always been looking for weapons to defend himself and his plans from the Gargoyle’s meddling. Even when he had given them a gift he still had seen them as a threat so he had justified himself giving them the gift of bodies by giving himself a gift: an ultimate weapon that could destroy not only the Gargoyles but ANYONE that got within his path. Their was only one problem, that weapon was in Coldsteel’s body.

He had been sure at that time that the malevolent soul within Coldstone’s body had some sort of grudge against Goliath due to outward evidence of his attacks on Goliath. Xanatos had been sure that this soul would quickly come to Xanatos after discovering what secrets it’s body held. Xanatos had of course, put countermeasures over the part of Coldsteel’s body that controlled it’s TRUE power, for Xanatos would never have let someone controlled THAT type of power without knowing that he could stop it at any time.

In fact, if Coldsteel had wanted to access the secret weapon within his body he would have had to come back to Xanatos for only Xanatos and Owen knew the codes for activating it. Furthermore, Xanatos would have only given the codes once he had made Coldsteel agree to Puck putting a spell on him that would amake Coldsteel to never use his power without Xanatos’ consent.

Of course Xanatos could have put the weapon in any old android’s body and controlled the weapon without Coldsteel with one exception -- the weapon needed a willing soul to power it. Xanatos had seen such anguish and hate in Coldstone’s eyes when the malevolent personality had controlled it that he could have sworn that the soul would be willing to sacrifice itself in order to destroy Goliath. Puck’s spell would have in reality bound Coldsteel to use the weapon WHENEVER and only when Xanatos would have it used. Coldsteel’s soul would be in incredible pain and anguish every time the weapon was used, but Puck’s spell would not allow the soul to be destroyed so it could be used again and again.

Unfortunately two things had happened; 1)Xanatos had truly changed in some ways and now would never allow such a horrible weapon to be used and 2)Coldsteel had never come to him to find out how to use the weapon. Xanatos would have been astonished if Coldsteel hadn’t found out about his true capabilities in a year’s time so he had always assumed that Coldsteel had never cared about the weapon or didn’t trust Xanatos. Xanatos had never pressed the matter and thought it would die of it it’s own accord and it almost did, until 5:00 am that morning.

Only one person it the world besides Xanatos and Puck could possibly know how to use the weapon within Coldsteel, and that was Christopher Friedman, the top computer programmer on the Coldsteel and Coldfire project. Christopher did not know what code Xanatos had used to encrypt the weapon’s access but he had made the software for it so he could probably hack through it. Christopher had seemed like a very moral and responsible guy, something Xanatos had admired but until recently he had always thought it had held him back. Now Xanatos had found out that Christopher had been kidnapped from his apartment that morning. The only marks left in the apartment were metallic claw marks and a door that looked like it had been crushed by a metallic tendril.

Xanatos was now standing away from his desk and looking out a window as Owen was cleaning his desk. Goliath and the other gargoyles could not find out about this for they would think that all his recent gestures towards them were as self serving as the robotic bodies had been. He had truly changed and knew that no one else would understand that, and he could not afford to give up his friendship with the Gargoyles. He might even miss them if they left the castle. Therefore he had to send someone else to stop Coldsteel, someone powerful enough to do it, but someone who wouldn’t feel obligated to tell the Gargoyles of their involvement, and that left the Labyrinth clan and the police out.

“Sir your desk is clean,” Owen informed as Xanatos snapped out of his thinking.

“Hey Owen, do you think you could--” Xanatos stopped himself from completing the sentence. The only way that Owen could us his magic was in the tutorship of Alex, and Xanatos did not want his son near Coldsteel and his power. No one, unless they were immortal, could risk going up against a fully powered Coldsteel. Suddenly a smile lit up as he finished his sentence but not the way he was going to. “-- get me the number for Linnux McDuff?”

“Certainly Sir.” Owen replied as Xanatos relaxed back into his chair feeling a whole lot better about the mess he had made.

Coldstone withdrew into his body and he disengaged the cable that was leading from him to Coldfire’s head. Both of them turned on their optic sensors and waited as they adjusted to the dark. They were in New York, in a clock tower they had never seen before, still searching for Coldsteel to destroy him once and for all. Slowly the stones of the tower focused in their eyes as Coldfire and Coldstone simultaneously began to run through their various sensors to detect what felt so wrong.

Coldfire picked up nothing on any of her sensors, but Coldstone pointed to a corner of the tower them and shouted, “COLDSTEEL!” Coldfire saw nothing where Coldstone pointed and to her surprise her mate leaped towards where he was pointing with his fangs bared and his claws stretched outwards. She followed him in order to try to bring him back to his senses and she screamed in shock when SOMETHING hit Coldstone and knocked him down.

Still nothing showed on any of her sensors as her love fell onto the giant gears driving the clock tower. She swooped towards Coldstone as metal scars and dents began to appear on his cyborg body and his flesh side began to bleed. She quickly realized that somehow Coldsteel had found a way to erase his presence from her electronic senses while her beloved could still see him with his fleshy half. Her eyes glowed an intense red as she screamed and swooped towards the emptiness attacking Coldstone.

Coldstone screamed, “Wait!” as he saw with his gargoyle half Coldsteel smile icily and rise away from Coldstone. Then Coldfire rammed into Coldstone, and the impact made Coldstone groan. Her surprise imprinted itself in his sensors as he felt the shock overload his system and shut him down.

Coldfire felt mortified at what she had done to her love accidentally but the remorse quickly passed when what felt to her sensors like metallic tendrils wrapping around her body. She tried to burn them with flames that poured from her hands , but she could not see them and her hands were quickly pinned down to the sides of her body. She strained but it did no good and slowly she saw Coldsteel appear in front of her. “Well my dear,” he sneered as he flew the two of them out of the tower, “It looks like the two of us will finally get a chance to be alone!” She screamed and growled and then finally sensed something coming from Coldsteel’s body. It was a wave of dense magnetism that passed over her and as it did it blacked out her electronic body and eventually her soul.

He had gone through many quests in his life -- money, love, power, and his own death. All this time he had been able to achieve what he wanted on his own. He had been in a partnership and that had brought him nothing but the destruction of everything he had ever wanted, so he figured working together hadn’t been for him. Sure he had been magically coerced to work together since he was a loner, and even right up to when Xanatos called him he had been in a group, but that was only because his quest was so great that he could forgo his promise to himself of lonership.

And now the fulfillment of that quest had led him to be that which he was now -- a detective. Xanatos was not the most trustworthy man every made, of that the man called Linnux McDuff was sure, but this time he didn’t think he was lying. The man that knew his name to be not McDuff but Macbeth had considered himself a good judge of character -- well at least in the past millennia or so he had been. Now he was willing to chance that Xanatos was telling the truth that he could solve Macbeth’s quest for him, for if not Xanatos would pay somehow.

Now Macbeth was trying to earn the reward Xanatos promised him, and he stared at the dents on the wooden floor below him. Besides the dents, the yellow police tape everywhere, and the door that was ripped off it’s hinges it looked like any other Manhattan penthouse apartment. Supposedly police were guarding this place so no one could remove evidence from the crime scene, but there measures turned out to be impotent against a man with a thousand years of wisdom. He kneeled down on the floor and noticed the size of the dents that left their imprints on the floor. He then reached into his trench coat and pulled out a squarish device that was a foot long and had a lens on each end of it. He strapped the device to his eyes and turned it on.

The apartment and the surrounding area was now bathed in a sea of green. MacBeth wasn’t surprised, he knew that even a cyborg didn’t leave a heat trail for THAT long, but it was worth a try, just in case it had come back to the scene later. Suddenly a smile quirked itself on his face as he punched a couple of buttons on the device and the background switched to a sea of mainly blue. There was however, faint red blobs everywhere and some darker red lines in the wall in front of him. Most amazing to him was the giant red sun that had seemed to appear in front of him. He adjusted a dial and then all he saw was blue except for where the shining ball of red had been. Now that red ball had become bearable for him to look at and he realized that it was two meters tall and not a ball at all, but a path.

Cyborgs might not leave day long heat trails, but the powerful ones charged the very electrons in the air for days. Macbeth was surprised the Xanatos had not thought of trailing the kidnapper this way, but the reward he was supposed to get from Xanatos was so important that he didn’t focus on this. Instead he saw the red path flow out of the apartment’s window. Macbeth went to the rooftop and called his hovercraft. He jumped in it and smiled largely. All he had to do was find this monster, subdue him, and return him and the stolen computer scientist to Xanatos and Xanatos would give Macbeth that which he desired the most in the world -- Merlin.

Coldstone, the love of her life, was cowering away from her arms that were spitting deathly fire. She stopped the fire and rushed to put him in her arms. “I’m sorry my love I thought you were Coldsteel,” she sobbed as her sensors detected his arms tenderly enveloping her.

She crooked her head up at him and saw him smile. “I took care of him easily my love. As soon as he wrapped those tendrils around you a rage filled me like I have never known, and it so consumed me that I rose from my injured state and slayed Coldsteel.”

Coldfire pulled back a bit from Coldstone as she looked into his eyes. “Slayed? Isn’t that a bit harsh? No, you are right my love -- he had proved himself a black hearted traitor one to many times to let him stalk this earth any longer. Come, pull out your cable and let us be together.”

Coldstone looked at her strangely. “Cable, what cable?”

Now Coldfire looked at him strangely, “Why the interface cable of course, did your memory get damaged in your fight with that villain my love? Or--” She stopped talking as Coldstone tenderly put a finger to her lips.

“Hush my love. I only meant that I no longer need a cable. In my fight with our evil brother I figured out a new way for us to be together.” He let go of her as he moved back slightly.

“What do you mean a new way, there is --” she did not finish her sentence before she felt herself withdraw into her body as Coldstone projected his presence into her without an interface cable.

He was still scared, and he shivered as he looked at the cyborg’s face. Well it was more an android then a cyborg really, but special circumstances made it so that his captor could easily be thought of as a cyborg. It was that special part that allowed it to be completely aware of itself even as Christopher Friedman was hacking into it. It had assured Christopher that it could still control itself enough to make Christopher pay if he tried to double cross it, and of this Christopher was sure, for he had made the software that ran parts of the body. He had especially worked on coding the secret that lay with in it.

The cyborg knew this, and it had captured Christopher to hack into this encoded wall to get at the secrets that lay within it. Christopher was now working on the computers, trying desperately to remember what back door he had left in this program. He left back doors in all of his programs, but he was a very prolific author and didn’t always remember what back door he had left in each program. He never put the same one in twice -- well with one exception. He had used the same password that he had used with this encryption program with another encryption program, but only because the cases were so similar that he thought they should have the same password. And now as he remembered that he remembered what the password was.

Quickly he typed in a LONG series of ones and zeros. Actually it took a long time to type them in. He knew what they were though, they were the binary expression of a WAV. file of Frankenstein singing the star spangled banner backwards. For some reason he had found that password not only amusing but strangely apropos to the two Cyborgs he had used them on. He smiled as he got into the program and quickly deleted it, from the inside out. The cyborg pulled it’s robotic face into a smile as the barrier inside of itself was gone and it could see the secrets it safeguarded.

The cyborg screamed, “I am now whole!” as it snapped Christopher’s neck in two with it’s tendrils. The secrets Xanatos had hidden so well in him were now his to use, and he could now quite possibly control the entire world. He felt no remorse as he wiped the blood off his tendrils. Since Christopher had been able to give him access to the secrets that lay within him he might have been able to take them away from them. Now a lot of people were in big trouble.

Again Coldfire screamed, and this time in anger as she tried to damage the part of him that was now in her mind and body. “Leave Coldsteel! This is worse then anything you have ever done! Leave and DIE!” She shrieked again.

Coldsteel looked perturbed and then a second later a thin shadow of Coldstone appeared over him and began to solidify. “What’s wrong my love, I know not what you see but it is I, your love. Now come here and--” he stopped as she threw herself at him.

She knew not exactly what they were when they inhabited other bodies. Was it their soul,, or just an extension of their electronic minds? Whatever it was she made that which was herself claw at that which was him. He cried as he appeared to bleed and the image of Coldstone disappeared. “I no longer care what my senses say, but in this cavern of my soul I see who you truly are, Coldsteel.” His face tightened from a grimace into a scowl. She clawed at him again, but this time it bounced off.

“I was trying to be nice to you,” he said as he advanced towards her. “I was going to make it seem like you were with your love, a nice thing for me to do since you never even showed any courtesy towards me. Now when we join you will know it’s fully me wandering through your mind, your thoughts, and your desires. This is the only way I can understand you and let you understand me. Once you know me you will love me, of this I am sure.”

Coldfire retreated from him as rapidly as she could in the void that was her soul. She almost cried, not being able to contain the thought of that THING being in her mind and sharing thoughts with him. He flew towards her and grabbed onto her wrists as he began to push his tendrils out of his wrists and towards her head.

With every ounce of will she ever had she pushed one thought, one desire, one command -- toward Coldsteel. LEAVE. Now it was his time to scream as felt his consciousness and his soul being pushed out of her body and back into his own.

Over the past year while the other two had used their interface abilities to mingle with each other he had learned how to interface with other machinery -- all other machinery. Whereas they had used the tools Xanatos had given them to explore and console each other he had used Xanatos’ tools to explore the world and try to control it’s machines. He could make ATM’s give him unlimited money, but no way to spend it and nothing to spend it on. He could sabotage companies and shut them down, but no specific humans to hate enough to do that to. He had therefore decided to use his interface and controlling abilities to the only goal he had ever had, gaining the love of she who should be his -- Coldfire. Back when he had shared Coldstone’s body with the other two he had come up with a name to free her like he was-- free from Goliath and the Old One’s ways. He had called her “Desdemona.” She had looked at him in utter horror and left to go find Coldstone. As always everything he had ever done to try to impress her had failed, and instead horrified her. If there had been only someway for him to completely understand her and let her understand him everything would be fine.

Therefore he had thought of this-- kidnapping her and making her thinking it was just one more mingle with her mate. Then he would use his abilities to MAKE her see who he really was. He knew he wasn’t really a bad guy, deep inside, and he was ready to do anything to her to prove it. Instead she had acted like he had tried to rape her.

Now she had somehow ejected him back into his body and she was probably in control of hers. He quickly controlled her perceptions so she couldn’t see him. Now what was he supposed to do? The last chance for him to become her lover had failed, like every other dream. His many attempts to take over the clan by eliminating Goliath also hadn’t worked, and he would never be a wizard-- men of metal couldn’t manipulate magic, of this he was sure. Everything he had ever wanted in his life had failed. He cried in anguish as he shot out some of his tentacles and wrapped her around a gear shaft in the clock tower. She rotated around the shaft as he cried again. She shot her flames out and tried to free herself, but she couldn’t. “You will never love me,” he cried as he pointed to her.

Now she was worried. She had seen Coldsteel do many things, but her audio detectors picked up that he sounded like he was crying. Of course no tears came from his robotic eyes but that did not stop the chilling effect anymore. She shivered more as he continued on. “There’s no reason for me to live when the world has squashed my dreams!” he cried again. She felt a small amount of sympathy for him, but considering everything he had tried to do to her, her love, and Goliath, it was a small amount of sympathy indeed. However her pity was replaced with cold thick terror as he continued on.

“If I’m going, so is this world that killed me. I can control and interface with any and every machine, as long as I know where it is. Time--” he started as he began to flap his wings towards the window, “for me to get a couple of maps. This world will end in fire, in tribute to you!” He screamed as he launched himself out the window.

Fire? Maps? What could he mean. She struggled with his tendrils for a little bit and then she stopped, frozen by her own fear. Fire? Maps? Machines? The end of the world? Nukes. He meant to find out where some nukes where. If he got a hold of the location of a lot of nukes she was convinced that he would use them to plunge the world into the hell he thought he lived in.

The red trail lead underneath a doorway that somehow stood up. He used the gadget to make sure that there was no alarms where he was going, and then put the gadget away. He then reached into the chopper and took out what looked like a large laser gun, but he knew it was something much more effective then that against cyborgs. It was a tazer. It’s metal arrowhead would pierce the cyborg’s flesh and the electronic charge would overload both it’s flesh and it’s robotic side.

He grinned as he carefully walked into the building, sneaking quietly over a period of ten minutes to where his gadget had shown the cyborg to be, on the second floor. He walked up the stairs silently, and as soon as he was up there he saw the back of the cyborg gargoyle. He shot his tazer and got very scared when it bounced off the side of the body that should have been flesh. The gargoyle turned towards him and walked into the light.

For one of the few times in Macbeth’s life he felt afraid. He had known who his enemy should have been even before Xanatos had tried to tell him. Macbeth knew a lot of things that happened for that was the best way to control things. He had known that Christopher Freidman was a programmer for Xanatos, and that he specialized in android and cyborg encryption programs. He knew that a being that Xanatos had made named Coldstone no longer worked for Xanatos. He had put it all together even before Xanatos had said that the likely kidnapper was “Coldst--.” He had interrupted Xanatos before he could finish saying the name, and told Xanatos he would do the job. The problem was, the being in front of him was NOT Coldstone.

Coldstone was half-metal and half-gargoyle, a cyborg. Maybe the being in front of him, who held Christopher’s lifeless body in one hand, could be considered a cyborg, but Macbeth wasn’t sure. After all the being in front of him was all metal. Except for half of that freaky looking head, which looked exactly like David Xanatos.

Owen raised an eyebrow as he saw Coldstone pin Xanatos to the wall. “Excuse me sir, but if you don’t have an appointment I’m going to have to ask you to please leave the tower,” Owen commanded. Coldstone was still holding on to Xanatos as he turned his head toward Owen.

“LEAVE!” he growled at Owen. Owen stared at the cyborg for a second before turning around.

As he left he informed Coldstone, “OK, I think I have a couple of lessons to teach to Alexander.”

Coldstone ignored the man and turned his head back to Xanatos. “Where is Coldfire, and why did you give Coldsteel those abilities? Tell me or I will flay your skin off!”

Xanatos was now really scared. Not from the cyborg in front of him, Xanatos had taken on much worse enemies in his life. No, it was the sentence about Coldsteel and “abilities” that scared him. “What do you mean ‘abilities’, Coldstone?”

“His control over our senses, of course! I couldn’t even see him with my cyborg half and apparently neither could Coldfire. He took her, and I don’t know where to. You gave them their bodies and I know for a fact that when you give people a body you demand some payment from them no matter what you say!” Coldstone ranted as he slammed Xanatos into the wall to punctuate his point.

Xanatos winced as he felt something in his shoulder crack but he just ignored the pain. He then responded to Coldstone, “Have you watched the news, I’m a good guy now, I even harbor your friends in my castle, go check up top if you want to see. I gave Coldfire and Coldsteel the same abilities except for the coils and the fire. I gave both of them some control over machines, as I did you. If he is better at using his abilities then you are, I’m sorry. As for where Coldsteel is I happen to have been wondering that myself and recently I sent a detective of mine to find and capture Coldsteel. I bugged the detectives hovercraft and it’s been stationary for ten minutes now, so maybe he found Coldsteel. Would you like the location of the hovercraft?”

Coldstone was about to respond when a white haired elf with a mischievous grin on his face appeared with a baby in his arms. “And this Alexander, is a little spell I call “Flesh to Kool-Aid.” He waved an arm in the air and began to speak.

The elf stopped his spell when Xanatos interrupted, “No need to do that Puck, everything here is fine. I’ve just promised to help Coldstone get what he wanted and in return he is about to leave here peacefully. Right, Coldstone?”

Coldstone growled, knowing that all he could do was trust Xanatos. “Where is this hovercraft?”

Xanatos smiled as he responded, “Near the old clock tower where the Gargoyles used to roost. I know you know where it is, now would you please release me?”

Thump! Xanatos hit the floor when Coldstone dropped him and flew towards the window. “If she isn’t there and this is all a ruse to distract me, you are in big trouble Xanatos, and no skinny elf is going to save you.” He then growled and flew out of the building.

“Skinny? Maybe compared to Oberon, but I have a lot more meat on my bones then half my brethren!” Puck looked at Xanatos and realized that he was bleeding from his shoulder. Puck pulled his lips into a pout and went over to heal his master, wondering what was troubling him so much.

He now used his sensors to find where in the base the computers where. However, the base was underground and his sensors were not as accurate that far down. The video camera monitoring system of the tunnel that lead to the base, however, was near the surface. He did what he always did when he took control over an electronic device, he reached inwards. There was something inside him that let him extend his power without the “interface cable” that Coldfire had talked of. He knew that he couldn’t completely use all of his capabilities for when he got in touch with whatever it was inside him it resisted him. He had pushed against the barrier many times and each time the electronic barrier had asked for Xanatos’ password. He had always planned to talk to Xanatos in order to find out what was hiding behind the barrier, but now that would never happen. The capabilities the secret already gave him were enough for him to fulfill his current desire.

After reaching inwards he thought of the specific video cameras his sensors could pick up and nanoseconds later he was “one” with them, in an electronic sense. He then shot his senses out on the wires that connected the cameras to the bowels of the institution, into the heart of NORAD itself. Once he was in there he quickly found the exact location of all of their computers. He then flew off to share with Coldfire the last moments of the world’s existence.

It worked and Macbeth began to see dark spots mix with the blood in his eyes. He couldn’t die but he could certainly feel intense pain and this thing was thrashing him about hard enough to qualify the pain it generated as intense. Suddenly SOMETHING rammed into the Xanatos Cyborg from behind it while screaming “COLDSTEEL!”

Macbeth plummeted to the floor as the Xanatos cyborg retracted it’s coils in order to confront the Cyborg. Awe struck Macbeth as he realized his savior was the one he had tracked here, Coldstone. Coldstone screamed with fury as he ripped off one of the Xanatos Cyborg’s arms. It turned it’s half human face towards Coldstone and Coldstone flew back with shock. “What type of game are you playing here Xanatos? Where is Coldfire and how did you get here so fast?” Coldstone stopped trying to communicate with the one armed cyborg in front of him when it turned it’s lasers at him.

Macbeth wasn’t sure what to think. He had come here to track Coldstone but instead this thing that was so obviously Xanatos’ that he put his own face on it attacked him. Now it attacked his original target with a calculatedness as Coldstone returned the attack with a cold fury. Macbeth knew who his assigned target was, but more importantly he knew who had saved him from the pain and who had attacked him. He reached into his pouch for a back up weapon he had packed. He had expected his target to be only half machine so he had packed his EMP as his back up weapon, not his main. Now he aimed his gun at the one armed cyborg and fired the trigger.

A pulse shot out of it and as soon as it hit the cyborg, which might be more accurately thought of as an android if it wasn’t for the eerily accurate Xanatos face on it, slumped over to the ground. Ripples of the pulse hit Coldstone and Coldstone screamed as he felt his cyborg body weakening. He saw the man with the gun pointed in his direction and threw himself at him. The man backed off as Coldstone landed on him, pinning him to the ground. “Why did you shoot me?”

The man looked at Coldstone with an exasperated look on his face. “Are you daft, monster? I just saved you from that Xanatos look-a-like cyborg. Even though Xanatos sent me in here to capture you and bring you back to him I wasn’t going to hurt you after you saved me. Further more I-AAAGGGGGGGGGGGG!” he cut himself off as he screamed. Coldstone didn’t know what to think so he relaxed the pressure on Macbeth so as not to hurt him. It didn’t change things until twenty seconds late Macbeth finally stopped screaming, and starting trying to draw oxygen into his lungs.

“Why were you screaming, human?” Coldstone questioned.

“A long time ago I was connected to one of your kind -- Demona. She is sort of responsible for me being here, and every time that evil beastie feels pain I feel it to. The sun must have just risen because--” he stopped talking when Coldstone interrupted him.

“You mean Demona had a part in your existense and you still don’t like her?” Coldstone questioned.

“Of course not! You can’t trust that--” he stopped as this time he was interrupted by Coldstone getting off of him, and talking.

“You don’t have to go any further. I have a certain amount of empathy with you, and you did stop that Xanatos look-a-like. It might interest you to know that Xanatos was the man who sent me down here, after he bugged your hovercraft. He said the man I wanted was down here, but he obviously wasn’t. Would you like to go with me back to Xanatos’ tower to see what exactly is going on here?”

“He bugged my hovercraft? Aye lad, I’ll definitely go with you, but you might want to bring Xanatos’ property here just in case he gets a sudden memory lapse of it’s existence when we confront him about it,” Macbeth shot back. Coldstone picked up the one armed cyborg and they went off to have a little chat with Xanatos.

They clattered to the floor and she screeched in happiness. She tested her wings to make sure they weren’t damaged and she began to fly out of the tower. She was stopped milliseconds later when Coldstone appeared in front of her. She panicked as she felt him control her body as she crumpled to the floor. “Now Now,” he said to her as he descended upon her, “You can be a better guest then that. After all, you’ll just kill yourself if you don’t get to witness what I’m about to do.

At the end of the whistling a rope descended into his view, and Macbeth scampered down the rope and into Xanatos’ office. He leaped at Xanatos and pinned him to the ground as he said, “You have a few things to explain, laddie. “

Xanatos looked at the cyborg and was shocked. He knew how that face that was on it got there, but the fact that it had iron in it was what shocked him. The iron contents of it was obvious from the way Owen sat there completely dazed and useless. Xanatos knew he’d half to solve this problem himself so that’s exactly what he tried to do. “Thank you Macbeth, I sort of lost track of that thing and needed him back, but where’s Coldsteel and Friedman? There were the ones that I hired you to get and I hope you don’t expect to get paid for retrieving the wrong people.” Xanatos instantly regretted the flippant tone in his voice when he felt Macbeth’s glove against his cheek in a full strength back hand.

“Friedman’s dead, due to this thing with your face on it, and as for Coldsteel, you told me to find Coldstone! And as for payment--” Macbeth stopped when Xanatos showed that he was ready to answer questions.

“This renegade,” he began as he pointed to the one armed cyborg, “ had been on the loose for a long time. He has cost my company millions and you can have Coldstone over there check my computers if you don’t believe that I have been looking for him for a long time. And I DID send you to find Coldsteel, you just interrupted me and thought you knew who you where getting. I’ll pay you 10 million for retrieving this cyborg for me but Friedman is dead and you won’t get our other payment for a fouled up job.” Macbeth looked at Xanatos and knew he was telling the truth. There was only one gentlemanly thing to do so he slammed Xanatos’ head on the floor as he ran towards the rope outside the window. “I expect the money in my account by tomorrow. Tell me if you ever have a job that pay’s what you promised me for this job, and I’ll think about helping you again.” He then jumped out of the window and climbed up the rope. Seconds later Xanatos saw a hovercraft fly off. He then looked at Coldstone.

Xanatos glared at the Cyborg and spoke, “Why are you here? Don’t you get it? I was actually wrong for once, and what had committed the crimes I thought were Coldsteel’s was actually this thing that had my face. I’m sorry it worked that way and if I ever find out where Coldsteel is I’ll tell you. In fact since the sun is down I can call the Gargoyles in for you if you would like.”

Coldstone just trembled, impotent with rage. He shouted at Xanatos, “I don’t trust you yet, and this is NOT over. I know you have something to do with Coldsteel’s attack on us, and if I don’t find him and my beloved soon, you are going to pay Xanatos -- whether I have to go through my rookery brothers to get you or not.” Coldstone then leaped out of the window.

Xanatos sighed as he pulled the cyborg off of Owen. Owen shook his head as he regained his senses. “Owen, put this thing in a cell, it has cloned parts of me in it so I doubt whatever shut it down actually killed it. Then clean up this mess.” Owen nodded as he dragged the Cyborg away.

Xanatos looked out at the city below him as the moonlight played off the shards of broken glass that carpeted his office. All of this mess he thought, is my fault. My old sins never stop haunting me. Oh well, he thought, Coldsteel is still going to be trouble, he shouldn’t be able to interface things without that cable of his. How am I going to clean up this mess he thought as stared out over New York City and into the night sky.

She felt him try to enter her body again and she began to try to shut him out, but a plan began to form in her mind so she let him in.

She could now see him, and beside him a series of maps. He was touching the maps with his hands and as he did they lit up. “As you can see, every time I touch a nuke, it activates. In minutes I’ll have activated it all, and no one can stop me. I may not be able to penetrate all codes and barriers in side of myself, but outside I slice through any code in nanoseconds. Soon all the-- why have you stopped screaming?” He looked at her and saw in place of fear on her face a smile as she walked towards him.

“You’re really powerful now, aren’t you?” she said as she slinked even closer to him now.

“Uh, yeah, what are you doing? I’m not stupid. I know you’re trying to seduce me so I won’t destroy everything, but I don’t care I--” he stopped as she put her arms around his. He knew that they were just electronic phantoms in a void inside her body but he could still feel those arms around him.

“You wanted to join with my thoughts, here they are, yours for the taking if you want.” She slipped her lips into his and he didn’t resist when she let him into her mind.

He screamed as he withdrew from her mind and backed away from her. They were both back in their bodies, and she had a modicum of control over hers. He looked at her and screamed. “Stop pitying me!”

She returned his stare sadly as she responded, “What else can I do? You always stared at me, but never acted. Coldstone and I had many fights when we were young, if you had simply befriended me then something might have happened between us, but all you ever did was stare. The whole world has passed you by and I have never once seen you accomplish anything before and it’s only one persons fault -- yours. If you destroy the world tonight I will die with pity for you in my heart and love for Coldstone, is that the way you want things to end? Or for once in your life do you want to do something meaningful and stop the nukes? You can send them off line, even destroy them all if you wish. It is your choice though, either you just let the world die, or do something.

He knew it was a trick, knew she was manipulating him, but knew it was the truth. He screamed as he took the nukes off line and using the tracking device he had put on Coldstone he sent a message-- “Your love is here” and projected a map of his current location. He felt that Coldstone was quickly coming and would kill him if he found him.

He then screamed once more as he took off in the night sky desperately and utterly alone.

“Haven’t you done enough damage?” she screamed at him as she began to back away from him and into the depths of the tower. He was shocked by this reaction and had no idea what Coldsteel could have done to her to make her scared of him. He decided there was only one way to see how much damage Coldsteel had done to her internally, and he took out his interface cable. Upon seeing the cable she stopped shaking and reluctantly let him plug it into the back of her neck.

In the depths of her electronic soul where Coldsteel had never been able to fully con her she saw her love Coldstone. She ran into his arms, accepting his embrace fully. Coldstone growled, “What did he do to you my love?” while she cried. He tried to seek to interface more, mingle their thoughts and souls together, and she stopped him.

“Please my love, not now, not ever. I’ve had Coldsteel in my thoughts now and I wouldn’t want to associate you with any actions he had taken. I just don’t feel like I want anyone sharing my thoughts now, or maybe ever again. Just hold me.”

Now Coldstone was really angry. What HAD Coldsteel done to her? He didn’t know but he intended to find out and as inside the electronic void the two held each other Coldstone knew that Coldsteel would pay dearly for whatever he had done to her. And as soon as Coldfire felt better, the two of them were going to pay Xanatos a little visit.

Chiding himself for forgetting that Friedman had programmed both Coldstone’s and Coyote’s encryption program, Xanatos sighed as he realized all Coyote knew was Xanatos’ memories from up to the point that the cloned cells that were on Coyote’s body had been taken from Xanatos. True that information was particularly damaging to Xanatos, but Xanatos knew that until he thought of a way to get rid of his cyborg he could do no damage locked in a far away corner in the castle. No one knew he put Coyote there, so no one could free him.

Coldstone, however, still needed to be captured. If he could control electronic devices from a distance he was somehow already using the secrets that lay within him, even though it was a very mild power compare to what he could do if he fully unlocked the secrets within him. In fact, if Xanatos did find Coldsteel he would destroy him the second he could, so that no one could misuse Coldsteel’s hidden powers. After all, Xanatos finally realized the Heart of Merlin was not something that should be toyed with lightly.

”Don’t kill yourself metal one. What would you say if I knew a way to make you fulfill all your dreams? I could have you rule the clan, be a practitioner of magic, and have the love of the one you named Desdemona.”

At first Coldsteel got very scared until he realized where the voice was coming from. It was not only coming from inside him but beyond the electronic barrier within himself that he drew his powers from. “Who are you?” he whispered to the voice.

”Other then the fact that I am not one who wishes you harm who I am matters not to you. Coldfire says that all she does is pity you but that was because you never acted. What would you say if I said that I could make it that you did act. You already know that even contained I have great power. If I was unleashed I would have tremendous power, enough to change your past and give you a second chance. Do you want a second chance?”

“Of course I want a second chance,” Coldsteel growled to the voice inside of him. “What would I have to do to free you, and how do I know you could do what you say you can do?”

“I know of a being that not only would be able to free me, but be delighted to do so. Just let me lead you to it. As for whether or not I can do as I say I can, look at the power I have already given you. Even if I meant you harm would you care when you current life is so wrecked? What have you got to loose?” the voice replied.

Coldsteel thought about this for a second and finally he agreed. Indeed, he thought to himself as he flew towards Manhattan, What do I have to loose?