*DISCLAIMER: Do you think by now Disney and Buena Vista would got the idea that I come in peace and mean no harm? Sigh, better not take the chance ... Gargoyles is the property of the above aforementioned companies. Luc, Kat, Arin, Nate, Tristan, and anyone else not covered by Disney and Buena Vista are mine, though Chimura and Ereinee are Mercedes. Sombrero is Andrew's. The grotesques and Blitz were created by David 'Blitz' Bumford, and brainstormed by the two of us. This is a rather weird timeline, considering that the timelines are constantly shifting in various dimensions, but read my previous fanfic unless you are prepared to become somewhat confused .... Enjoy! Xtra Thanx go to Mercedes, Sombrero and Blitz for being there for me, Stormy, Whitbourne, Strider, and Joel as well as all my other faithful readers who don't email me, and Jeb and Chris for archieving my work, and everyone who has links or visited either the Clone Wars Page or Clan Winslow Homepage! Oh, and of course, MATURE CONTENT!!!

TIME: After In Darkness Corneth". Switches between the closing days of the Clone Wars (2038) and 2078.*

GOLIATH: You betrayed your own clan! (Show Goliath and Lexington fighting, Future Tense")

CHIMURA: Previously, on Gargoyles ...

CALIGO: You are afraid of loneliness ... Losing the clan's children to adulthood frightens you... (Show Caligo and Lexington fighting, In Darkness Cometh: Revenge of the Black Sword")

ARIN: Brooklyn, I've seen where the world Luc comes from. (Show Brooklyn and Luc arguing, In Darkness Cometh: Ashes, Ashes")

(Show Luc perched up on the parapets, staring out over the East River, Desolation of the Soul")

***
Gen-U-Tech Headquarters
Long Island
July 2, 2038

Lexington was alone.

All alone save for the bitter memories of the past, all caused by the blackened scar on his right hand, the one that branded him a life of brief pleasure but constant misery.

He rubbed it in deep thought, thinking back to the times before the war when he lived happily with his clan. But Sevarius fucked the world by releasing his unnatural and unholy army of clones, mutates, and cyborgs.

That was thirty years ago.

Even Demona retched at her former partner's creations, and she and her mate, Caligo, disappeared into the woodwork, hadn't been heard from since.

Brooklyn had always commented under his breath that they had gone into the Shadow Realm his father controlled, usually adding derogatory complaints afterwards, coward" and traitor" being the more gentler of the terms. From there, Goliath, then leader of the clan, had formed alliances with clans and factions around the world against the evils of Sevarius. At first only the Mutates and the denizens of the Labyrinth, Clan Winslow all the way from Maine, and Clan Siuslaw from Oregon joined the cause, aided by the Black Sword at times.

It was the latter of these alliances that brought the downfall of Lexington's life. With the Black Sword, under the guidance of the just Athena and passionate Diane, but with mysterious Zanthe still in the Matriarch, Chimura, his beautiful and gentle mate from Greece, simply up and left when the truth of his past came to surface, taking their hatchling daughter Ereinee with her. To make matters worse, he seemed to be a constant target when he joined raiding parties, losing first his tail, then his left arm, shoulder, and wing, then ultimately his right eye and ear and part of his face on that side from shrapnel. After replacing his tail, with a stronger but equally flexible metal appendage, he was still a use in battle until the next two incidents occurred one right after another. Deeply concerned that he was more of dead weight than any use, he drafted Eddie's metal shop and robotic engineering skills, Brentwood's computer programming genius (Eddie on spell checking), and a little bit of Alexander's magic to aide him to create new limbs and circuitry similar to that used in Coldstone. He was then, after all was said and done, probably the perfect weapon on the side of the Resistance: because of Alexander's woven magic, he was psi-blind, unable to be mind-read by anyone, including RC and Brooklyn; because of his titanium endoskeleton, he was practically indestructible; and because of the computer-enhanced impulses in his brain, he could think in terms of nanoseconds.

Of course, this drove Chimura, being a natural technophobe, further and further from ever returning to New York.

But Lexington realised that war was no time to think about love.

But love was the reason he was here on Long Island.

Recalling the stored image in his positronic memory archive, he displaying it in the upper right-hand comer of his vision.

A young gargoyle female, roughly twelve years old, six by human standards, dressed in a simple Grecian dress, was tied to an examination gurney, her hands and feet bound with steel cable, her mouth clamped shut by a tight metal ring around her head. She was small for her age, with olive green skin, ram-like horns, and webbed wings, her large eyes wide with fear.

A tear streamed down from his organic eye.

The bastard had his daughter.

The picture was attached on an email note with no return address.

Lexington was to come unarmed to Gen-U-Tech to discuss terms for the release of Ereinee.

He was unsure of what to think and almost shrugged it off as one of Sevarius's stunts, until Chimura herself contacted him and sobbed in both English and Greek about the little girl's abduction.

He took little time to leave the Eyrie Pyramid.

That was about half-an-hour ago.

Now, he padded silently though the seemingly abandoned laboratory building, his sensors all keyed in to detect any hostiles in the area. There were many clones on guard, though all were ordered or rather programmed to let him pass. He then switched to a general sensor sweep of the entire building, detecting only clone lifeforms, Sevarius, and the child.

That meant Lilith and Mauser were out. Good, the less independently thinking commanding officers, the better.

Lexington homed in on Sevarius's biopattem, realising with sorrow the possibility that Ereinee's prison could be rigged if he tried to rescue her first before consulting the evil creature who barely passed as human.

With a growl, he pushed open the steel door to the main office.

A rather stately elderly human sat prominently at a desk, skimming a computer terminal. He almost could have been anyone's grandfather, save for the soul-piercing orbs radiating malicious intentions he possessed for eyes. Without looking up from the terminal, Sevarius grinned and retorted in a raspy voice, "You've come at last, Lexington. I've been expecting you."

"You certainly didn't think I would ignore the fact you kidnapped my daughter," he snarled, his eyes flaring white.

"Of course not," the comer of the human's mouth quirked upward.

"What do you want?" the cyborg interjected forcefully.

"Nothing much," Sevarius stood fluidly, smoothing his lab coat absently. "I require your assistance in one of my ... projects..."

"What kind of project?" Lex's eye ridge shot up.

"A new species of gargoyle, really," Sevarius's grin became wider. "I need your technological knowledge."

***
Eyrie Pyramid

"...So then Officer Dumbass shines his flashlight into my face and demands my license and registration." Smith paused, blinking for a second. He glanced over at his partners in crime, Wesson and Sombrero, who were snickering. "Okay, I'm a gargoyle driving my friend's Camero. 'Here's the registration, sir, but, you see, I can't very well go to the DMV and pick up my license. They're usually closed when I wake up.' Anyway, it's not like I can just waltz in and say, 'Hey, ass-munch, I need a license... Yeah, I've lived in Maine all my life ... yeah, I'm a US citizen ...male, 6-foot-two, two-hundred-thirty--"

Wes coughed, sounding suspiciously like he had said, "bullshit".

"’... blond hair, blue eyes ... white skin ... no, not Caucasian white ... here's my slave labour papers ... my hatching certificate ... photo ID? ... here's me and the rest of the Outklaws at our first co-ed party involving alcohol ... oh, we were twenty-one in that picture, sir, trust me, but that was back when the legal age was eighteen--I know I look young back then, but, hell, it was the summer of 1978 ‘... frig! That was sixty years ago! Wes, we're becoming old farts!"

"Speak for yourself, bro," Wes chuckled.

"Back to the news of the day," Smith picked up the clipboard Fang handed him through the door of WVRN Rebel Radio, 107.1 FM, "er, night, two more days before we have the annual BBQ..."

"This year, we're going to serve cloneburgers and mutate-in-a-bun," Sombrero muttered, barely avoiding a kick from the cougar mutate.

"Watch it, Big Bird," Fang warned as he returned to his place behind the glass.

"I think I heard the entire Resistance population groan at that one," Wes snickered.

"This year's theme: Viet-freakin-Nam!” Smith threw in Credence Clearwater Revival into the CD player. "Fortunate Son" played softly in the background. "We'll all dress in khakis and dogtags, drink Budweiser and Schlitz and fry up some burgers and talk about the Charlies and have Brooklyn do his Lieutendant Dan impression."

"’... That's all I've gotta say 'bout that,"' Sombrero snorted.

"Now, for some more serious news--"

Wes and Sombrero began hissing and growling.

"--Staten Island is being regularly patrolled by the awesome might of Chaz's Avenging Angels. Though the border is constantly being tested by Shock Troopers, Chaz and his boys always manage to kick ass with minimal casualties."

"When do we get to the ion cannon?" Wes questioned excitedly.

"Not yet. Our correspondents in Australiasia report no clone activity in the New Zealand/Australia/Japan area, and if there was, Clan Stewart Island, Dingo, and/or Clan Ishimura. kicked ass, respectfully."

"Ion cannon ... we want to hear about the ion cannon..." Wes groaned.

"I said not yet. Late-breaking news from Clan Delphi: a raid of Shock Troopers just attacked the Oracle just a few short hours ago, kidnapping ... oh, man, this is terrible ... kidnapping the daughter of our beloved techno-wizard, Lexington! Revenge is a bitch, Sevarius! That bastard, I hope Lex kicks his ass big time."

"Go get him, brother Lex! Wes cheered. "And leave a piece for the rest of us! Preferably dead ... I don't think I could deal with Sevarius any more ... are we going to get to the ion cannon?"

"Not yet. Our fearless leader, the almighty Brooklyn, has requested for reinforcements from our friends in Ishimura and Stewart Island. Sources will not comment any more."

"What the hell are you talking about? Brooklyn told us not to comment anymore! And what about the damned ion cannon?" Wes pleaded.

"Fine! On a sad note, our beloved second-in-command, Eddie, had lost her most treasured possession: her ion cannon. After a mutate attacked her, the ion core of the firearm reached critical mass and exploded, taking out half a block of Queens as well as an entire regiment of Shock Troops. Eddie herself is reported in fair condition, suffering only minor bumps, bruises, burns and scrapes ... and shrapnel in her--"

An extremely loud shout from the courtyard below stopped them dead in their words.

"You boys better shut up now before I come up there and whup all your asses!" Eddie screamed.

"Speaking of which, how's yours?" Sombrero asked cheerfully.

"Ut-oh, station manager alert," Wes whispered, flipping on the switch to play "Imperial March." The door flew open once more.

"How many times have I told you three to stop picking on Eddie?" Brooklyn stood in a Ward Beaver-esque stance, his hands crossed over his chest, one eye ridge raised.

"Too many to count even with my fly down," Smith jested.

"Speeketh, oh wondrous Station Manager!" Wes shalomed. "What brings you up here? Surely not to defend Ed's temper--"

A good-sized rock sailed up from the courtyard, smacking the window overlooking the East Side. The four of them winced as the glass cracked with a delicate spiderweb pattern.

"I don't think I have to defend Ed's temper," Brooklyn smirked. "I think you guys better watch it. You may be bigger than her, but she's got the guns, remember?"

"Yes, sir," the three nodded.

"We've got to talk," Brooklyn then pointed out. "Sign off."

"Gotcha," Smith flicked on the CD player. "And now, the infamous Smith and Wesson must board their Silver Machine--"

Brooklyn's eyes widened, then he growled somewhat.

"You idiots ... you got into Arin's Hawkwind collection, didn't you?"

"--To fight the evils of Doctor Frank-N-Furter--"

"’... I'm making a man, with blond hair and a tan, to ease my tension!"' Wes chortled.

"Invisible robot fish."

"Guys, I'm going to let Eddie up here if you don't hurry it up..."

"We will leave you to enjoy music from around the world and beyond!"

Smith jabbed the play button and cued Fang, who flipped off the "ON AIR" sign.

"What's happening, Brook?" Wes questioned.

"Where's Lexington?" The leader demanded bluntly.

"I was with him when he got the message from Delphi," Smith retorted. "Sevarius managed to nab Ereinee. Chimura was in hysterics."

"I can imagine," Brooklyn nodded, flipping on the intercom switch. "Arin! Mercedes! Clay! Brentwood! To the courtyard, pronto! Flicking the switch off, he added, You too, Fang."

"What?!" Fang demanded, his jaw dropping.

"I need the fact you're one of Sevarius' original mutates."

"Oh, geez, thanks for reminding me of that little shameful tidbit," the cougar mutate grumbled, marching out of the control room and down the stairs, followed by the cast of the Smith and Wesson show and finally the, Resistance leader himself.

***
Eyrie Pyramid
40 years later
July 3, 2078

Lexington was alone.

He sat sullenly in the main office, his office, surrounded by monitors, CPU units, and keyboards. His ergonomically-correct chair (a Christmas gift from Alexander about ten years ago,) was geared with anti-grav units, allowing him to hover and move amongst the various hardware with a slight flick of the wrist on the nav-pad.

It has been forty years, he grumbled to himself. Forty long, painful years.

Everyone was gone, either dead or left New York. Both his brothers and their mates were dead. The only thing he had left from them were the three kids", now all adults, and even two of them, Kat and Tom, had a child of their own. They might remain at the castle, but the youngest, Luc, was too much of an adventurer, a thrillseeker, a dreamer. It wouldn't surprise Lex that is he left again ... earlier in the year, he had left with his paternal grandfather, Caligo, only to return after a rather unpleasant encounter with Caligo's sister, Zanthe, costing her her Word. Lexington sighed, typing a quick command into the keyboard at the right of him.

His video e-mail list popped up on of the monitors in front of him. There were the usual business deals, proposals, et cetera, etcetera, et cetera--

--Wait.

One addressline stuck out.

mercedes@delphi.gr

He smirked, clicking up the e-mail message. Mercedes, a former Clan Winslow member, during the Wars, fell in love with one of the Clan Delphians, a handsome male named Aeneas. He hadn't heard from her since--

--since Chimura and Ereinee left Manhattan at the close of the war.

His posture sank as he brooded over the sad memory.

The video clip finally finished loading, and the image of the aquamarine female filled the screen.

Time had been kind to her, he thought. She aged well over the decades since the war, seeming twenty years younger than she was actually save for a few streaks of dignified grey in her mulberry hair.

"Hi, Lexington!" her voice tang as a brilliant smile crossed her face. "Just wanted to see how you guys there in Manhattan were ... I hear Kat and Tom have a little bundle of joy ... tell them congrats for me ... I'm heading back to the farmstead for July Fourth with Aeneas and the kids ... I wanted them to see where their old lady grew up ... give them a little more than this cold you don t have a mom-and-dad, the entire clan s your parents crap ... also show a little USA patriotism!" She pulled out a little American flag with fifty-two stars on it and waved it furiously. Lexington laughed as she tossed it behind her. "Okay, well, I wanted to let you know I'm dropping a little surprise over on my way home. I hope you'll enjoy it. See you the third! Toodles!” She waved, and the transmission ended.

Wait a minute. The third?! He checked the date of the message.

June 30.

"Talk about a delay," he snorted, scrolling through the rest of the messages. Nothing seemed to interest him. Business-related stuff, nothing so interesting as the personal message.

"Hey, Uncle Lex!”

He did not need to turn around to know the voice.

"How many times have I told you to knock, Luc?" he sighed.

"Door was open," the tan male smirked, jumping onto the desk and sitting crosslegged on the mahogany top. "Anyway, Kat just picked up a bogie on the old radar. Thought it might be of any interest to you."

"Might be Mercedes," Lex nodded, standing up. "Get off the desk." The smile across Luc's beak grew wider, his emerald green eyes shining with mischief.

"Luc, you're forty years old. Please act it."

"Let me get this straight," Luc put his hand to his forehead, as if thinking hard. You want me to act my age, but you don't want me leaving the castle."

"Oh, you can leave anytime. Just remember, there's a rather irate mute Matriarch out for your blood."

"Oh, yeah, I remember now," Luc'nodded, teasing. "The long-lost-auntie who I Silenced."

"Luach, you don't realise how powerful Zanthe is," Lex warned, walking by the tan gargoyle. "If she ever got her Word back--"

"...let alone her voice..."

"--you could be in serious trouble, and one day not even Caligo could dig you out."

"Speaking of which," Luc pulled out a folded sheet of paper. "Grandfather mailed me from Paris."

Lex inwardly groaned. Now he was calling him "Grandfather?" The kid hadn't even known Caligo a year!

"Luc," Lex shook his head. "Caligo wouldn't know how to be a father, let alone a grandfather. What makes you think he'll treat you differently from how he treated Brooklyn?"

That seemed to have hit a nerve in the other gargoyle as Luc stormed out of the room, hands balled at his sides.

Lex sighed, exiting his office and heading up to the courtyard.

"What am I talking about?" He grumbled on his way. "I don't even know how to be a father."

***
Eyrie Pyramid
Courtyard
2038

Brooklyn leaned against the stone wall of one of the battlements, his arms crossed over his chest, his eyes closed, his beak pointing downwards. He sensed the five he had asked exclusively to join him advance toward the darkened part of the shadows.

Mercedes.

Fang.

Claw.

Fox.

And Arin.

He smiled somewhat as her thoughts directed a loving surge toward him once the motley group came within physical view. Motley wasn't exactly a word he could use to describe the five: Mercedes had on her urban cammie uniform along with her stylised gold and silver breastplate, along with her staff held relaxed on her shoulder. Fang was still in his usual S&W Show tee-shirt printed in the Rocky Horror font and tattered blue jeans, with a plasma rifle slung over his shoulder. Fox, his cock-eyed smile reminiscent of his father, donned light armour similarly like the old Steel Clan armour, only reinforced with his own magical defenses, holding the helmet under his arm. Claw, his scarred back hidden under a black turtleneck, boasted a nightstick strapped to one hip and a nine millimeter at the other. And, of course, Macbeth's fiery-tempered daughter, Brooklyn's own mate, stood at the lead, her form unmoving save for the billowing of the black trench coat and the slight ruffle of stray strands of hair caught in the stale wind. She seemed unarmed, but Brooklyn knew there was always a taze gun and shortsword sheathed underneath.

"So what's the story?" she demanded with a slight smirk.

Just as Brooklyn lifted his face to regard the group, another, this one irate, joined the six uninvited. If Arin carried herself like an unsheathed knife, Eddie held her posture like a loaded and cocked shotgun, even with the limp. Though not in her usual midnight blue-and-silver armour outfit, she still possessed her aura of battle-ready in her blue jeans and Iron Maiden "Shoot The Fukkers" tee-shirt. Her infrared eye sensor caught the gleam of the flood-lights in the outer courtyard as she leaned against the wall perpendicular to Brooklyn.

"You're not in the condition to help out this time, Ed," Brooklyn stated bluntly.

"I just want to listen, bro," she grumbled. "Don't you think your second has every right to know what the hell's going on?"

"Fine." He heaved a sigh. "As you may or may not know, Lexington took off earlier this evening. Smith and Wes informed me that he had received a transmission from Chimura. Apparently, there was a Shocker raid on Delphi."

"Why would Sevarius do a thing like that?" Mercedes demanded, her eyes taking on a yellow-green glow. Delphi's peaceful and neutral."

"Save for one fact," Eddie retorted. As you may recall, Delphi's Chimura and Ereinee's clan. Sevarius struck there to wound Lexington."

"And that he did. He kidnapped Ereinee." Brooklyn sighed again. Fox's smirk died, only to be replaced by an angry scowl.

"Then Sevarius has Lex by the balls," Arin muttered, chewed on her lip. Why would Sevarius want with Lex, though?"

"Besides the point he's an advanced cyborg with magical enhancements?" Eddie pointed out. "Sis, you remember that document Monika stole aeons ago, before Stiletto was laid?" She raised her eyebrow at her own words as Fang snickered.

"Sevarius' report on gargoyles, yeah," Mercedes nodded, ignoring the mutate.

"I've got a theory, and it ain't pretty," the green female growled. "I brought the report to Lex's attention a few years ago. Since then, he hasn't said a word about anything relating to it. I know he has been researching with biochemistry and genetics, but not to the extent Frank-N- Furter is. Call me crazy--"

"--No problem," Fang muttered.

"--but maybe Lex got to a landmark, and Sevarius found out. Anyway, it's obvious that Lex might have something Sevarius wanted."

"I wouldn't think Sevarius would sink so low as to hold a child hostage," Mercedes growled.

"Don't give him at much credit, babe," Fang retorted. Claw snarled silently in agreement. "Who would think he'd report two of his security guards were killed in a laboratory accident, just as an ex-police officer is MIA and a homeless woman from Ohio disappears off the face of the planet, hmmm?"

"Point taken and noted," Mercedes nodded rather cynically.

"So what's the plan, oh fearless leader?" Eddie demanded.

"Mauser would probably know we're send reinforcements after Lex," Brooklyn replied, stroked his chin . "Then a strategic strike might not be in our better interests."

"Mauser's not the type to vary his attacks, either," Arin pointed out. "He'll probably strike out against any full-blown attack we throw with a Rommel-special, if you know what I mean."

"Arin," Eddie snapped her fingers. Are you and your father aware of American Civil War tactics?"

"Why?”

"I was thinking of something a fellow did in the closing days of Gettysburg," she remarked. "As the North's supplies were diminishing ... and the 20th Maine was outnumbered two to one--"

"Doesn't that sound familiar..." Fang grumbled.

"...Um ... problem... Arin pointed out. The difference between Chamberlain and Rommel is eighty years and a hell of a lot of tanks. I don't see how running down a side of a hill with bayonets fixed against a regiment of modified Panzer Tigers is going to do anything for us..."

"But what if our bayonets were more a little more powerful, say, a few Hummers?"

"Why don't we invest in a couple of Bradleys as well?" Fang groaned.

"We don't have any Hummers, save for Clay's little obsession," Mercedes rolled her eyes. "The problem is, Chaz took out the engine."

"Wonderful," Brooklyn smirked somewhat. Serious as the situation was, there seemed to be someone cracking a quip or two.

"We have enough Steel Clan robots and exosuits, and even a few of them are rigged up with some anti-tank arsenal," Fox pointed out. "However, a couple of the antitankers were taken apart to repair the Peterbilt.”

"Well, we can always dig up the crackpot," Eddie grumbled.

"You don't mean--" Arin groaned just as a huge explosion sounded from the courtyard. There was a high amount of commotion as the command group ran out to see a demolished F-14 nose-first in the stone ground. "Asshole" by Denis Leary blared from the cockpit as a humanoid figure blew open the canopy, singing along.

"Friggin' autopilot never worked right anyway," he grumbled as Angela and Monika raced with a group of volunteer firefighters drafted at the last minute to put out the blaze. The man leapt out, pulling out a mini-tape recorder. Pressing record, he whispered into the microphone, "Note: Get new F- 14. Make sure Autopilot works. Warrantee a plus. Don't buy it from Dreamland again." Flicking it off and replacing it in his flight jacket, he waved toward Brooklyn.

"--the crackpot," Brooklyn shook his head.

"Hey there, oh great and powerful telepath known to all as Fearless Leader!" Blitz Hunter shouted, jogging over to the group. And please don't call me a crackpot, Ed. I prefer 'sanity- impaired.’” Reaching into his back pocket, he pulled out a little black computer. "Okay, you need enough firepower to level Sevarius' troops. I do have a thousand tons of napalm in my storage facilities..."

"Napalm..." Eddie grinned evilly. "'I love the smell of napalm in the morning...’”

"I can tell," Blitz jested. It's the only type of cologne you wear."

Brooklyn took hold of Eddie's wrist before she could punch the strange weapons dealer into orbit.

"My brother and his daughter are held against their will by Sevarius," he added.

"Ah, a reconnaissance mission," Blitz nodded. "Sounds like fun. Can I play?

"So what it sounds like you need a cloaking devise ... some well-placed explosives ... maybe some particle beam weapons..."

"Recon, Blitz," Mercedes reminded.

"I'm listening," Eddie grinned.

"You're grounded, remember?" Brooklyn reminded.

"Fine," Blitz returned to the smoldering remains of his fighter jet. Kicking a panel away from the intake, he ventured inside. He returned from the depths, wheeling out a Kawasaki Ninja bike, unsinged.

"I guess I can tag along for the ride. I've got some mounted anti-tank missiles for the bikes. Good for recon missions."

"Sounds good to me," Eddie smiled broadly.

"Anything pertaining to weapons sounds good to you," Mercedes rolled her eyes at her sister.

"What can I say? I love a man with big guns," Eddie shrugged, then shot a glance at Blitz, who was wiggling his eyebrows at her. "Of course, I can make exceptions..."

***
Eyrie Pyramid
2078

Kat was suddenly starring down the barrel of a rather big hand cannon.

"So," Luc growled, "At last, we meet for the first time, for the last time."

"Aw, c'mon, little bro," Kat pleaded. "I'm helpless ... I'm out of ammo..."

"Sorry, sis," the smaller gargoyle shrugged. "All's fair in love and war."

And, with that, he fired, drenching his older sister with a blast of high-pressured water.

"You little shit!” She screamed, taking up to the chase. Luc laughed maniacally, emptying the rest of the contents of the water cannon onto an unsuspecting Tom, who was trying to enjoy his beer in peace.

"Budweiser's watered down anyway," Luc shrugged as he ran by. Tom groaned, staring at his glass.

"It is now," he grumbled, picking up his own Super Soaker 10000, strapping the fifty- pound water tank to his back. Pulling out the nozzle, he aimed at Luc, who dodged at the last second, the high-pressure onslaught caught Kat smack in the chest.

Sierra, standing in her playpen next to her daddy, jumped up and down, clapping and laughing.

"I'm in deep shit," Tom whimpered as she stood helplessly, Kat stalking toward the father of her child.

"Indeed you are," she snarled, tackling him with a full body check.

"I was aiming for the shrimp!" Tom protested as Kat turned the water bazooka onto the lavender gargoyle, firing it point-blank.

"Just remember, this shrimp's quick," Luc doused the two of them once more, then, glanced up at the sudden gust of wind. "Kat, Tom, we've got company!"

Kat stood, flinging her wet mane from her face as she looked to where her brother was pointing. The jet, an older model used during the Clone Wars, hovered over the helipad on one of the larger battlements, the worn logo of the Xanacorp still visible on its tail.

"Luc, go get Uncle...” Kat was interrupted by Lexington exiting the castle to meet the kids in the courtyard.

"I'm already here," Lex nodded just as an older aquamarine female hopped down from the upper level, landing gracefully in front of the four.

"Hey, Lex!" She greeted with a joyful hug. "How've you been?"

"Hi, Mercedes," he returned the hug gently. "Keeping myself busy since Alexander left me in charge of the operation ... also trying to keep the kids out of trouble..."

"And apparently, you're failing miserably," Mercedes joked as she released Lex and turned to Kat and Tom. "My god, you kids are getting so grown up! I'd ask for a hug, but, you know..." She waved at their wet clothing, then noticed the hatchling. "Oh! It that--’

"--Sierra," Kat picked up her daughter and handed her over to the older woman, who accepted her gratefully. Sierra giggled as Mercedes rubbed noses with her.

"She looks so much like her Grammie Ang--" Mercedes paused somewhat, her eyes hazel-green eyes saddening. I'm sorry, I've forgotten..."

"It's in the past," Tom mumbled in agreement. "I know she looks like Mom. And, in a way, she doesn't," he returned to his usual jovial disposition and ruffled the little girl's hair.

"And who is this handsome lad?" Mercedes readjusted Sierra to her hip. Luc perked up somewhat from refilling his water cannon. "This can't be Luach, can it?"

He rolled his eyes somewhat. She reminded him of a pesky, overloving auntie. At least she didn't wear too much makeup and weigh three tons.

"I prefer Luc, ma'am," he whispered softly, setting the weapon of senseless enjoyment against the stone wall.

When he turned to face her, she regarded him with a strange (recognising ... ) look crossing her face.

(arin's eyes, brooklyn's beak, macbeth's nose,) he could almost hear her think. That was what most anyone who fought in the Resistance pointed out when first meeting him. All, mother, father, grandfather, were strangers to him.

However, Mercedes said nothing, only nodded. Perhaps he disturbed her. He recalled the first time he had met Eddie. She used to stare at him uneasily with her single stone-grey eye, mumble something intangible, then go back to cleaning her rifle or fixing the tractor or car or something that wouldn't require her to look at him. There was a ... humanish ... look to him, yes, even with his beak, which made other gargoyles uneasy. But then there was Annie, technically Tom's aunt, who was half-human. She had always seemed easy-going with the others. Maybe it was his fae heritage that radiated "freak" toward any other gargoyle.

Or maybe it was his Word.

He shook his head of his web of thinking as Mercedes called down to five others above. Three was Aeneas, her mate, and their children, Leigh and Orpheus. The other two--the larger holding a medium-sized garg-mutt--glided down after the first three.

Mercedes excitedly introduced her children, Leigh, a woman about Luc's age, and Orpheus, ten years younger than Kat and Tom, as Aeneas traditionally shook hands at the arm with Lexington.

That was when the small cyborg was tackled by the smaller of the two others.

"Father!" she cried happily.

Lex gasped in surprise, holding her at arms' length. "Ereinee? I can't believe it! Your mother actually let you--"

"--Not really," the young woman, a few shades lighter than him but sharing his build and wing structure, shrugged, pushing away a stray lock of deep red hair. "I kind of 'snuck aboard'."

Lex shot a flabbergasted look at Mercedes.

"As far as I know, she did," she retorted, with a gleam of mischief in her eyes.

"Chimura is going to have a fit!" the cyborg remarked, hugging his daughter. She was slightly shorter than him by an inch or two.

"I have plans to call her after my ride conveniently leaves," Ereinee shrugged. She pulled away. "Oh, where are my manners? Father, this is my best friend Tellemacus, and Urites, my pet."

"Wonder which one's the pet?" Tom muttered into Kat's ear. She snickered.

Luc joined the side of his sister and glanced at her through his peripheral vision.

(did you know uncle lex had a child?) He whispered telepathically.

Yes.

(i didn't even know he had a mate!)

She knew, her mental patterns revealed, but apparently, she had left long before Luc s rookery clutch hatched. Chimura was, in fact, Tom and Kat s rookery mother.

His attention suddenly shifted to the behemoth of a gargoyle following Ereinee. At least a foot taller than Luc's six-foot height and an easy two-hundred pounds heavier than his lank form tipping the scales at one-fifty, Tellemacus was not a force to physically reckon with. Even Tom seemed to have a threatened expression, and he wasn't exactly a lightweight.

Tellemacus glanced over at the much smaller gargoyle and stared at him.

And Luc suddenly felt a sense of dread.

This guy did not like him.

But why--

And his gaze switched over to Ereinee, getting a good look at her, he understood why.

She was beautiful.

And apparently, Tellemacus saw him as a threat to his territory.

But didn't she just call him her best friend"? Maybe something got lost in translation ... ?

"Hello!" she cheerfully greeted to him, and abruptly, she popped up in front of him. "I'm Ereinee."

"Luc," he remarked shortly, surprised, imagining in his mind Tellemacus carving his name in a voodoo doll. Her heard Kat snort, then whisper something in Tom's ear. He stiffed a giggle.

"That's a neat name, like Luke Skywalker?"

Apparently, the hundredth anniversary of the first Star Wars trilogy even reached to the backwoods of Greece.

"Use the Force, Luc!" Tom laughed.

"Don't tempt me!" Luc pointed accusingly at the bulky gargoyle. Back to Ereinee, he remarked, "It's short for Luach. I was named after an uncle."

"You've kept your lineage?" Ereinee questioned. "Kalyso and the others say we shouldn't dwell on our parentage, but I'm proud of my father. Mother had said a great deal about him, all good." They both failed to notice Lex's face suddenly contorting in a confusion of shame and surprise. "How about you?"

"Kat's and my father died at the end of the Wars," he mumbled. "Our mother died about thirty years ago."

"Oh." She seemed ashamed for a second for asking, but gave him a quick hug. "I'm sorry. I didn't know."

He yelped somewhat, more from the look Tellemacus shot him than Ereinee's sudden gesture.

Lex had to smirk. He recognised the glare Tellemacus was giving Luc. It was a similar glare he and his brothers gave each other when Angela joined the clan and before she chose Broadway.

Let the games begin, he thought to himself.

***
Eyrie Building
July 4, 2038

"LET'S GET READY TO RRRRRRUUUUUUMMMMMBBBBLLEEE!!!" Smith hooted in the microphone. "R U Ready For This?" played in the background. "Our July Fourth Bash will begin with fireworks and end with fireworks as we go into battlemode! The home team: at five- eleven, weighing in at an astonishing one-five-oh, the lovely and talented Mercedes of Clan Winslow!"

Mercedes ran out into the courtyard and into the large circle created by all the denizens of the Resistance, skipping around and waving her hands, arousing the crowd into a cheer thrown in with a wave of those wishing to participate. She could have sworn Macbeth even joined in, but she wasn't sure.

"Next, at five-nine, tipping the scales at one-thirty-five, the siryn who can make a Psycho Sluts from Hell song sound like Sarah Brightman, Arin MacDuff of Clan Manhattan!"

With her own style, Arin leapt from the parapet overhead, her wings and coat billowing around her. Landing without a sound, she suddenly burst into an old Pat Benetar song, her voice drowning out the sports jam music in the WVRN tower.

"'We're running with the shadows of the night, so baby take my hand and we'll be all right. Surrender all your dreams to me tonight, they'll come true in the end!"'

The Resistance, silent to hear her song, became loud with wild shouting.

She finished with the ending scale of Phantom of the Opera" and joined Mercedes at the other end of the circle.

"Following that, we have the massive tag-team of six-eight, two-seventy-five, and six- eleven, three-hundred, respectfully, WVRN's own Fang and Claw!"

The two mutates jumped out from the shadows just as Wes changed the track to Tag Team's "Whoomp! There It Is!" The younger members of the clans began dancing as Fang rapped along to the tune. Suddenly, in a middle of the chorus, the song abruptly switched to "The Imperial March", and everyone knew what that meant.

"On the bench, but not out of the game, our beloved second-in-command, at five-seven, one-sixty-five, one-hundred-percent-no-life-till-leather-gonna-kick-some-ass-tonight, the Mistress of all projectile weapons, the Almighty Eddie!"

"Who brings new meaning to the phrase 'Metal Up Your Ass,'" Sombrero mumbled.

"Ladies and gentlemen," Wes grabbed the mike from Smith. "You will not be seeing Eddie tonight, mainly for the reason she has just redirected course to come up here to kick our asses."

"So, without further ado, the playing manager of the Resistance, at six-ten, weighing in at two-seventy, our fearless leader, the often-imitated-but never constipated--"

"Just get on with it, Smith!" Wes groaned.

"I hear Eddie coming!" Sombrero cringed. "Either that, or Scuzzlebutt is loose!"

"Shut up! You're going to get us in trouble!" Smith snarled.

"Enough, guys," Brooklyn walked out into the courtyard, a smirk fighting across his usually serious face.

"But we didn't get to the ball boy!" Smith protested just as the station door banged open. "AAAAARRRRRRGGGGHHHHH!!! IT'S EDDIE!!! THE END IS NIGH!!!

"Eddie, get down here!" the leader bellowed.

"I am down here," she growled behind him. "Those shitheads are pulling a publicity stunt again."

He rolled his eyes.

"While those three are busy screwing around--"

"--HELL HATH NO FURY!!! SHE'S KILLING US!!!"

"--we've got work to do." With a quick glance up at the radio tower, he narrowed his eyes. The airwaves silenced instantly at his silent command. "I'm beginning to wish they stayed in Winslow."

"They stowed away," Eddie pointed out. "And Sombrero isn't any of mine.

"Blitz, inform us on our weapons situation," she resumed her role as second-in-command. The strange humanoid saluted with a "Dur Fuhrer!" and took a deep breath.

"Four bikes: Brook's, Ed's--"

"Who's grounded," Brooklyn shot a glance over to his second, who pouted angrily.

"--mine, and Colt's, all rigged up, locked and loaded and ready to go." Blitz retorted. "Still, I don't understand why we can't nuke Long Island."

"Two problems: The fact that Lexington and Ereinee are there, and there are some uncorrupted humans still in hiding." Brooklyn growled. "And the nuclear fallout would affect all of New York and New Jersey."

"Details, details," Blitz shrugged. "It's called acceptable casualties of war."

Brooklyn blinked, then narrowed his eyes again.

"Okay! I'll shut up now before you fry my brain or something," Blitz grumbled. "I've rigged up some of the Steel Clan exosuits with similar anti-tank missiles. And, for the beautiful and multi-talented Eddie, I created a nice little napalm cannon to replace that out-dated ion piece of junk."

"What?" Eddie gasped. "Oh, Blitz! You shouldn't have!"

Brooklyn rolled his eyes for the third time that night.

"ENOUGH!" he roared, bringing the drone of the talk to nil. "Okay, you're all aware of the situation with Lexington and Ereinee."

"Nuke the bastard!" Claymore shouted from the ranks.

"I second that!" Jun, a blue female from Clan Ishimura, laughed.

"Both of you!" Eddie snarled a warning.

"The problem is, we've already lost too many of our brothers and sisters, lovers and friends, haven't we?" Brooklyn advanced into the crowd. "Goliath, Magnum, Hudson, Sora, Justin ... these are only a few of the causalities... I don't want to anymore friends to die in this war.

"We've got to stop this tonight.

"This immoral and evil tyranny must cease!" Brooklyn shouted.

"Yeah, how?" Colt stormed up to the leader, his eyes blazing. "We're outnumbered, outgunned even with the crackpot--"

"-I've got plenty of firepower!" Blitz protested.

"--and outmatched. These creatures are programmed with every fighting style known to man. They find weaknesses in patterns. In a word, Brook, we're fucked up the ass with a chainsaw!"

"That's gotta hurt," Blitz mumbled.

"Then you're giving up," Brooklyn nodded.

"I'm not giving up--" Colt protested.

"Then what do you propose? We wait for more reinforcements?" Brooklyn was on the verge of shouting. "How far do you want Sevarius to take over until we attack next? Pittsburgh? Boston? How about somewhere closer to home, like Portland, Augusta or Waterville?"

"Give 'im Newark!" Fang shouted.

"You're not helping." He directed the next inquiry to the Resistance. "We've spent thirty years keeping Sevarius and his monstrosities at bay, forcing him to stay on Long Island. Wouldn't you think that was an accomplishment?"

"Well, we're not getting much support from anyone else, love." Arin sighed. "The Quarrymen, you'd think, would be the first to attack. Instead, during the first few years, they were attacking us. The military hasn't offered help; hell, the government deemed the entire city off-limits."

"The Quarrymen," Blitz coughed, "gave up early. My fault, really."

"I don't want to know," Eddie shook her head.

"I don't know about you, but I'm tired of waiting for reinforcements that never arrive," Brooklyn snarled, jumping everyone. He began pacing heavily, a habit he only did when he was deep in thought. "We need to strike now!

***

Lexington shook his head, staring at the monitor on his desk.

The visual surveillance from the castle was clear as day, using their own WVRN tower as their downfall.

"I wish it didn't happen this way, Brooklyn," he whispered as a figure appeared behind him.

"How's it going, Lex?" Mauser grinned, the eerie glow of his eyes the only uneasy feature revealing his submittance to the neural reprogramming wetwired into his brain.

"The grotesques are ready, if that's what you mean," Lex stood. "I don't like the idea of hyper-aging, though; that could be their downfall."

Mauser nodded to the screen. "They're going to attack, aren't they?"

Lex sighed, nodding somewhat.

"Can we hear?"

"No."

"Damn. Oh well." Mauser shrugged. "Ed's probably going to do her usual guerilla tactics."

"More than likely," Lex grumbled, a little sardonic.

"Good job, old chap," Maus clapped him on the shoulder and left the office.

Lex groaned once more, standing. Picking up a handful of schematic papers, he snarled somewhat, sinking to his knees.

"I'm sorry, Brooklyn," he whispered somewhat. "I'm sorry, Ereinee. I'm sorry, Chimura ... but this has to be done ... "

The stately gentleman smiled somewhat, watching his own set of monitors.

"Another will broken," he smirked, switching the monitor to the laboratory.

"Another soul crushed," his companion, the wingless female gargoyle, added.

"Lilith, my dear," he-patted her hand. "Will you please check on the newest additions to the family?"

"My pleasure," she nodded, heading down to the lab.

Sevarius leaned back into his chair, smiling rather evilly.

***
Eyrie Pyramid
2078

"I already hate him."

Tom blinked, staring at the smaller male. They were in Luc's room, surrounded by old framed posters of Hawkwind, Motorhead, and other British old school metal bands. The tan male was strumming on a bass guitar. Tom recognised the baseline as "Seek and Destroy" by Metallica.

"This Tellemacus kid, right?" the lavender gargoyle smirked.

"'Kid?' He's, like, some sort of mutant!" Luc retorted.

"Actually, that's about the size of the normal gargoyle, I think," Tom remarked. "I remember Magnum being that size ... though I was a lot younger..."

"Tellemacus does not like me," he shook his head. That's apparent."

"He can't be that bad, bro!" Tom grinned, listening to the song change from "Seek and Destroy" to "Bastard" by Motley Crue.

"You sure? Did you see the way he looked at me when Ereinee talked to me?"

"Am I interrupting any type of male bonding?" Leigh poked her head into the room. Unlike her brother, Leigh was more into dressing modern, while Orpheus wore a traditional Greek tunic. "If so, I'll come back later."

"Leigh, no; in fact, we've got to ask you something!" Tom placed an arm around Luc's shoulder. "Is Tellemacus 'seeing' Ereinee, by chance?"

"Goddess, no!" she laughed. "At least, to Ereinee, they aren't. She's too busy poking her nose into everything than to even consider a mate. But Tellemacus thinks otherwise." She giggled. "He's madly in love with her, but can't tell her himself for some reason. Maybe he's shy. Who knows? But maybe that's what keeping the other males from trying to court her. Tellemacus is the biggest in his clutch."

"Thanks, bro," Luc grumbled sourly, punching Tom's arm.

Leigh raised an eyebrow in synch to the comer of her mouth.

"You like her, don't you?" She smirked. "Aren't you a little young for a girlfriend?"

"I'm forty years old tomorrow, if that's what you mean," Luc protested.

"Forty ... ?" Leigh blinked. "Well, I'm thirty-nine. You don't look that old, kiddo."

"I get that a lot," Luc rolled his eyes.

"Well, that puts you about twelve years behind Ereinee, Luc," Leigh shrugged. "Let me tell you this: Tellemacus is not the type to mess around with. You're better off to leave him and Ereinee alone. It isn't worth risking your life over."

"Leigh?" Orpheus tapped her shoulder. "Mother said we should get going soon."

"Actually, I have a better idea," Mercedes peeked over her daughter's head. "Why don't you kids join us? It'll be much more fun there than hanging out here alone. I'm sure the castle would be safe for a while alone, with all the automated Steel Clan to guard it."

"Oh, that'll be great!" Tom exclaimed, jumping up. "I haven't seen the gang in a million years!"

"Oh, no," Orpheus rolled his eyes. "Thanks, Mother."

"It's a wonderful idea!" Mercedes grinned. "I just have to convince your Uncle Lex to go. You know how he is."

"Good luck," Luc muttered.

"No!" Lex shook his head. "I am NOT going to Winslow! Eddie and I did not part on good terms!"

"Come on, Uncle Lex!" Kat whined. "It'll be fun to hang out with the old gang!"

"Oh, sure, considering, and I quote, 'If I ever see your cybernetic carcass ever again, I'll make sure you leave in pieces."' Lexington crossed his arms over his chest. "You kids can go: I'm staying."

"Please, Father?" Ereinee pleaded, linking her arm with his organic one. "Whatever happened between you and her must have happened aeons ago! Surely the two of you can make amends!"

"I don't think it'll be that simple."

"When was the last time you left this place?" Aeneas demanded. "I'm willing to bet not since the Wars ended."

"Exactly."

"Uncle Lex!" Tom and Kat protested, as Luc snorted, glancing over at Tellemacus, who instantly narrowed his eyes, glaring at the small tan male.

"Please, Father?" Ereinee repeated sweetly.

"Fine," he threw his hands up in the air. "Okay, I'll go. But don't be offended if Ed and I don't talk to each other."

***
Brooklyn Bridge
2038

The exosuit was slightly cumbersome, being that it was originally rigged for human use. However, after a few quick alterations, Eddie had all systems on-line and operational.

She had waited for the teams--Brooklyn had split up the Resistance three ways: the youngsters and some who were wounded beforehand stayed at the castle, and two other teams, a stealth team going though the back and the front team, comprised of everyone else who could fit into Chaz's Peterbilt; the Avenging Angels, which consisted of rather rough- looking humans and gargoyles of questionable backgrounds, Blitz on shotgun and Brooklyn at the point--save the ones who were supposed to stay put to leave the homestead. No questions asked, she jumped onto her own Suzuki Katana, the bike sinking a little more with the added weight of the modified suit, and kick-starting it to a loud whine, and she was off like a prom dress, following the frontal team at a safe distance.

Now she waited again, watching the big rig disappear deeper into the streets of Long Island. As the gratified trailer escaped her view, she switched on the jammer and entered the zone, hitting off the safety of the napalm cannon rigged up on her left arm.

"'No life 'til leather,' boys," she smirked, throttling the motorcycle fully, taking an alternate route to Queens, one that led to more Shocker patrols, but somewhat quicker in distance.

"Okay, who's ready to see the bitch in action?" she snarled as her sensor bleeped a warning. Shockers at seven o'clock!

Swinging her left hand from the brake, she aimed into the direction of the disturbance and fired indiscreetly. The steady stream of jellied fuel splattered against the clones just emerging from an alleyway. They paused momentarily to ponder the substance as Eddie sparked the flame- thrower.

"'Quench my thirst with gasoline!'" she quoted as the napalm caught. She sped away as the heat triggered the auto-destruct mechanisms in their brains, raining body parts over the street.

"'Gimme fuel, gimme fire, gimme that which I desire!'" Eddie chortled, then slapped her head. "'Dammit! I hate 'Reload!'"

With a sour "fuck it", she resumed speed through the ruined city, keeping her sensors on for any more bogies.

She suddenly felt an angry pang in her frontal lobe, one that demanded what the hell she was doing.

Brooklyn had found her out.

"You ain't keeping me cooped up in the castle when my place is to fight," she snarled aloud. "We all want Sevarius's carcass on a stick!"

Another pang, asking about vengeance.

"This isn't about Mag!" she shouted. "This ain't about him..."

Another pang, of sadness. She suddenly found her thoughts drifting to her own son, the last reminder of her love with the large but gentle Outklaw.

"What are you trying to say?" she asked softly.

Simple thought: This is my last mission as Resistance leader.

"We're gonna win?"

Yes.

"Then the war's as good as over!"

Kat ... Kathryn and my unborn child ... I will never see them grow...

"Shit!" She snarled. "Are you saying you saw yourself--"

I've known this ever since I was granted the Sight.

"You ain't gonna die!" she roared, her eye flaring red as she gunned the throttle, popping a wheelie as she did.

It's impossible to cheat Fate, Ed.

"Never tell a Mainer something's impossible," she retorted, ignoring any more psionic messages.

As independent as she was, she had her loyalties.

And damned was she if that child in the rookery was going to loose its father the way Joshua Lawerence did: never knowing.

The Gen-U-Tech building was in sight. The Peterbilt was abandoned and empty about a half-mile from it, and the bikes a few yards closer.

She pulled her Katana close to Brooklyn's still-warm Sportster. Staring into the infinite black of the gloss paint on the gas tank, she growled something intangible as her sensors indicated more clone activity heading straight for her.

"Fuckers," she snarled, revving the rice burner. Throwing it into gear, she careened the bike toward the small troop of Shock Troopers. They all seemed clusterfucked, trying to figure out the logic of her ramming attack. They hesitated a nanosecond too long as she launched herself from her motorcycle, switching on the exosuit's rockets to gain altitude. Opening fire with her mortar mount on her right arm, she sprayed the area down with the jellied napalm, her bike included.

"Adios, shitheads!" she saluted the unofficial Resistance salute, middle (third for gargoyles) finger extended in a cross between the American Army and a mockery of the "Dur Fuhrer!" salutes as she lit off the napalm, everything in the area igniting and exploding.

"See you in Hell!" she yelled somewhat cheerfully as she spread her reinforced exo-wings to guide her flight to the Gen-U-Tech rooftop. Taking out a few more clones on guard with her mortar, she blasted open the roof door and stormed in, all weapons on line and ready.

"Hair triggers; gotta love them," she commented, blowing away a few mutates in the process. Glancing around, she noticed the Ground Troops running towards her.

These Ground Troopers were more or less the unfortunate humans who Sevarius captured and altered them wingless and more reptilian, whereas the flying "monkeys" were feline. Pushing back the thought of possible humanity within their brainwashed minds, Eddie leveled the mortar mount.

She as well as her adversaries halted as a blackness descended on them.

"What the hell ... ?" she whispered as a light blue hand grabbed hold of her arm with surprising strength.

"I can't let you do that, Ed," Brooklyn's voice whispered, though it wasn't as authoritative. Instead, the authority was replaced by a streak of madness.

Malibu!

"So that's where you've gone to?" she snarled. "You've gone back to the father you claimed you hated with a vengeance."

"Far from it," the clone of the Resistance leader shook his head. Green-black hair fell over the right side of his face as if it grew like that; his visible inverted blue eye shown with mixed emotions. "I still hate Sevarius. The only reason I'm here is to protect my protectorate."

"Your protectorate, Mal?!" she snarled. "You were needed in the Resistance!"

"It's hard to fight for a side that hates your kind, Ed," he whispered. "After what happened to me when I tried to help you get your friend Mauser back ... you would have let me die, wouldn't you?"

"I don't have the time for this!" she snarled. "Are you at least still loyal to Brooklyn?"

"Of course," Mal nodded. "He tolerated me and my brothers and Delilah. But you wouldn't."

"Dammit, Mal, let me go! Brook may die!"

"Correction: he will die. Fate has already measured his string, and Clotho is ready to cut it."

"What ... ? You have gone mad!"

"Have I?" He directed his attention to the lead mutate, the one least resembling its original human genetics, complete with twitching four-foot tail behind him. "Tristan? Do you remember me?"

He said nothing, only readied his laser.

"Tristan, it's me. Malibu. Your friend."

No response.

The clone narrowed his eye.

"You have disgraced your lineage, Tristan. Disgraced it with the fact that you have succumbed to thinking you were merely human."

Eddie watched intently as the mutate's hand quivered somewhat, the eerie green glow of his eyes fading somewhat.

"You are a Pendragon and a New Olympian! Act like it and fight Sevarius's control!" Mal's eye darkened to a glowing black.

The mutate's mouth cracked somewhat as the eyes widened, the dull green becoming white with grey-green irises of confusion and sadness.

"Mal?" he whispered, his voice tiny as though he had not spoken for years. "Malibu, what has happened?"

"Do as I say, Tris," the clone whispered. "Lead the others away. They listen to you. Tell them there is no danger. Let Brook and the others by."

I don't understand--" the mutate ... the one Mal had called Tristan, Pendragon, and a New Olympian, which Eddie knew was a type of mortal or demi-mortal fae not friendly with Oberon and his children...remarked, then corrected, "I trust you, Mal. And afterwards ...?"

"Afterwards, Tris," Mal closed his eyes just as a stray breeze from the outside caught the lock of hair hanging from his face, pushing it away, revealing burnt and scarred tissue around a lidless, infinite black-coloured eyeball. "Afterwards, lead them to destroy the laboratories. Explain to them what has happened. And lead them to the Labyrinth. We'll start over, where Talon and Maggie left off."

I will," Tristan nodded, turning on his foot. With a non-verbal command, the brigade of humanoids marched off into the opposite direction.

"Sometimes madness brings peace, Ed," Malibu whispered, and suddenly, the blackness engulfed him and he was gone.

"What the hell ... ?" she demanded softly as she continued on her way.

This evening was getting rather interesting.

And it got even more interesting when she found a cyborg on her scope, a few yards east.

Too complex to be a Sevarius borg, she thought to herself, flipping on her stealth mode. The sensor-jamming refracting field surrounded her in a shadowy haze, absorbing light around her so that it would seem she would be in a perpetual shadow.

She walked to the steel door, scanning for a weakness. Finding a seam, she extended the exo-suit's claws and forced them into the seam, pulling the metal apart like two pieces of paper almost noiselessly against the constant drone of the incubators that laid inside.

Slipping in, she stuck to the darker shadows, trying to assume what Sevarius was up to. Some sort of large creature, larger than the average gargoyle occupied these incubators.

Daring to sneak to one of them, she studied the control panel. Punching in some commands, Eddie bit her tongue to hold back a curse.

Sevarius called them grotesques.

Human and gargoyle DNA intertwined with some synthetic helixes, creating a new superbeing!

Homo saxum diliculus.

There was a movement to her right...

... side-stepping back into the shadows, she watched with horrific realisation...

... as Lexington passed her, glancing at a clipboard in his hand.

It was a good thing the shadowy cloak absorbed all light, for the ferocious blaze of her remaining eye would have given her position away.

Lexington's the traitor?!

She held back an instinctive growl as she crouched to pounce.

"Bastard," she snarled finally as he turned just in time for her shoulder to connect with his vulnerable mid-section.

"Eddie?!" he squeaked as her back-hand punch slammed into his cheek. With her exo-suit, they were pretty evenly matched, save for the fact that she was a unstoppable war machine when pissed.

"TRAITOR!!!" Eddie roared, picking up the smaller cyborg by his shoulders and throwing him against the reinforced titanium wall. "You've been aiding Sevarius ... ?!"

"He has Ereinee!" Lex snapped, raking at her napalm reservoir. The gelatinous substance squirted from the ruptured pipeline in haphazardous directions, coating all with the deadly fuel. She obviously didn't hear that, as her rage engulfed her to the point Lex doubted her rational thinking was still in control. He whipped his tail around, tripping the irate second-in-command. "He captured Ereinee to get my aid!"

"For what?!" she growled, pulling him underneath her and pinning him by his arms.

"You were the one who figured out his plans. He's been trying to create a new breed of gargoyle so that we won't die out!"

"He's creating a new breed of soldier!" she snapped, tossing him again, this time into a control panel to one of the incubators. It shorted out just before a warning klaxon sounded off.

"What am I supposed to do?" He snapped back. "He's got my daughter!"

"Ask us for help!" she retorted, her rage fading somewhat. "Why couldn't you ask Brooklyn or Broadway for help? They're your brothers..."

"What would you do if he had Joshua Lawerence?" Lexington asked rhetorically.

"I know," Eddie whispered, disengaging her refractor. "Do me a favor and destroy these grotesques. There's got to be a better way in dealing with that problem."

He nodded as she staggered out. He must have damaged one of the gyroscopes in her suit.

As he sighed, glancing up at the creatures he had so painstakingly helped create in two days, he heard an ahem! from behind.

"You're not seriously considering listening to the redneck, are you?" Lilith snorted. "Remember, I can say one word and Ereinee will die, or mutate, depending on the severity."

"Fuck you," he growled, very uncharacteristic of him.

"Not now. Anyway, I have a little proposition for you. I won't tell Sevarius you just let the second-in-command of the Resistance walk in, beat the crap out of you, and leave before you could kill her, if you do one little favor for me."

"What?"

She grinned, her teeth, brilliantly white against her dark purple skin.

"Destroy Brooklyn."

"NO!!!"

"Or I destroy your daughter." She put a hand to her headset. "Psi-3, have you seen Mauser? No? No matter. I have a extermination job for you--"

"I'll do it," Lex whispered, sinking in posture.

"--Cancel that, Psi-3," she grinned. To Lexington, she cupped his chin in her hand and forced him to gaze into her cold green eyes, proof of who her mother was. "You are more like us than you thought, Lex."

***
Somewhere over New Hampshire
Early July 4, 2078

"...So we decided the children should be with their other clan," Aeneas was explaining to him as Lex snapped out of his memories. "Orpheus remembers the Resistance, of course, but Leigh hasn't been around the ... ahem ... diversity ... the other hatchlings did."

"Like Dweezil and Harvey?" Kat smirked.

"Or Joshua Lawerence and Stiletto?" Tom added.

"Let's not forget C-4 and Nina," Luc pointed out.

"Sombrero!" the three cried out, then laughed hysterically.

"'Dweezil?'" Leigh raised an eye ridge. "'Harvey?'"

"Yeah, well..." Lex snorted somewhat. "Mal wasn't exactly in his right mind to begin with..."

"Aunt Delilah was a huge Zappa fan," Tom shrugged. "'Devil, there are only two things I like most in the world, and that's--'"

"Tees n' ber!" Sierra chirped up suddenly, shocking everyone.

Kat growled somewhat at Tom.

"Tell me," she snarled, "my daughter did not say 'Titties and Beer'."

"She didn't," Tom retorted pitifully as he bolted out of his seat and into the cargo hold, with Kat hot on his heels. Sierra clapped her hands, snuggling into the crook of Luc's arm.

"You want to get your daddy in trouble, don't you?" He smirked, rubbing noses with the hatchling. She giggled, taking hold of a lock of his chocolate-coloured hair.

"Hey! Leggo'f my pickle!" Tom quipped from out back.

"Thomas!" There was an audible crunch.

"Ow! My foot!" the large lavender gargoyle hopped back to his seat on one foot.

"That'll teach you," Kat sank back into her own seat, content.

"Enough, you two," Mercedes ordered from the cockpit of the old jet. "We'll be on our best behavior."

"Last I remember, Eddie was a rude old coot always with a burr up her ass about something," Tom hissed over to Orpheus, who snickered in agreement.

"Personally, I don't blame her," Lex mumbled.

Luc stood up with Sierra still in his arms.

"I think the twerp's getting tired," he exclaimed. "I'll go put her in her playpen."

"Gotcha, bro, and thanks," Kat nodded, looking a little tired as well.

"We're almost there anyway," Mercedes retorted. "Another half-hour, and we'll be back in Winslow--" her voice suddenly took a heavy Hungarian accent "'--where we can do the Time Warp once again!'"

"The official mating dance of the rednecks..." Tom mumbled. Orpheus and Leigh both snickered.

"'It's the pelvic thrust that really drives them insane,'" Kat muttered, turning her head somewhat to catch a few z's before they landed. All was quite for another five minutes, before the crimson female bolted upward once more.

"Where's Luc?" she demanded.

"Probably stepped out to catch some fresh air," Tellemacus rumbled, deadpan.

Tom appeared shocked.

"My god! It speaks!" he gasped. The Clan Delphians cracked up laughing.

"I'm more concerned of him poking his beak where it doesn't belong," Kat exclaimed, standing up once more and heading back out to the cargo hold.

"He's the curious type?" Ereinee questioned.

"And a little on the impetuous side," Tom remarked. "Quick thinker, maybe a little too quick. Like the time just after Sierra was hatched, he confronted Zanthe--"

And suddenly, everyone's attention was on the stout gargoyle.

"What?" he demanded, reaching into Sierra's travel bag and pulling out a Coors.

"Yes, he's talking about Zanthe of the Black Sword," Mercedes nodded.

"I don't know of any other Zanthe," Aeneas stated. "What I don't understand is how the boy survived that type of encounter."

"Silenced her," Tom retorted. "Took her Word away."

Tellemacus's head whirled around, his eyes shining with confusion and interest.

"Don't tell me that little--" he spurted a string of Greek curses "--not only faced a powerful- -" he spurted something else, this time Lex recognised the phrase as "First Matriarch" "--but took her power away? What did he do, tear her throat out?"

"Nope," Tom shook his head. "He kind of beat her to the draw."

Tellemacus blinked again, then got up to confront the little shrimp once and for all.

He at first thought it was a ruse of some sort to get his sister and her rookery brother to play along with some lame-brained scheme to impress Ereinee. As gargoyles went, he felt the three were a little too influenced by humans.

He settled back into his padded seat, glancing around at the blinking lights and thingamabobs lining the insides of the jet.

"Christ Almighty, Luc," Kat hissed, crossing her arms over her chest. "What the hell are you up to now?" The question had a rhetoric tint to it, as obvious as the thousands of butterflies made of shards of coloured light danced throughout the normally drab cargo hold. The young hatchling clapped her hands and squealed in delight as the tan male somehow controlled the creatures. His eyes, she noticed with a shiver, took on the silver hue she recognised as magic usage.

"I don't know if I can stress it enough," he retorted, dispersing the butterflies in a single motion of his hand, "that the Word isn't exactly magic, sis."

Damn him. Why could he sense what she was feeling, when she could only heard what he projected to her?

"I can't help it; I come from a genetically dysfunctional family," Luc shrugged.

"Oh, shut up," Kat growled with a smirk. "Seriously, bro, how are you doing that ... ?"

"Same way I usually do."

"Without getting sick?" she arched an eye ridge. "Luc, the times I actually seen you after you casted a Word, you'd be walking around with a headache for the rest of the night at best. You don't seem at all phased right now."

"Maybe I'm getting better at it," he shrugged somewhat. "Maybe I'm getting stronger..."

"That's what scares me, Luc," Kat whispered, gently coaxing her daughter to lie down in the playpen. "After what happened with Zanthe... "

"I'm so sick and tired of people bringing up that point! " He growled, jumping up to perch on a crate. "I panicked; she was going to kill Grandfather..."

"Luc," she shook her head. "I don't know why you insist on making Caligo part of your life. He never helped out in the Resistance during the Wars." She crossed her arms over her chest and stared up at her brother. "Daddy never spoke good of him."

"Then why did he wield Caligo's sword?" Luc snapped.

"That was before I was hatched," Kat whispered, leaning against the wall. "I don't know why he did."

"Then maybe there was something Father saw good in Caligo," Luc concluded softly just as Orpheus entered the hold.

"Mother said we're almost there," he remarked. "Am I interrupting ...?"

"Oh, no," Kat commented, walking back into the passenger cabin. Luc's eyes followed her, then glanced down at his sleeping niece.

"Who am I going to trust, Sierra?" he whispered. "It's so hard to know what's right ... and so hard living in the shadow of my father..."

He sighed again, sliding off the crate and leaned over the playpen to ruffle the young hatchling's hair, shades darker than his.

"May you never have this predicament, kiddo," he added, padding out after his sister.

***
Gen-U-Tech Laboratories
July 4, 2038

Malibu held true to his promise; the ground mutates did not bother the Resistance as they stormed the laboratory, destroying any hostile mutate and clone that attacked. The smarter Shockers fought until the Resistance gained the upper hand, then they would run off, re-fortify, and attack again.

Brooklyn had split the frontal troops into three additional groups, with himself, Arin, and Chaz leading different lines down different levels, as well as Renet and her Stealth team entering the rear.

He had felt anticipation and anxiety from everyone.

Okay, not everyone.

Eddie was still on a rampage somewhere on the upper levels, where Arin's troop was clearing.

He sensed Lexington there as well, and--

What the hell ... ?

Usually, with his odd quirk of telepathy, he could sense mental types of creatures. Normal, everyday run-of-the-mill humans and gargoyles appeared as a grey haze of sensory, other psychics were white, and magic-users were a kaleidoscope of shades. Sevarius' mutates and clones were always a dark grey, and the lead ground troopers were an off-white.

There was something, almost an absence of mind that sensed like a black hole of a mind, though there was a great amount of intelligence lurking within. This appeared as black on his mental spectrum.

And he could not sense anything from it.

He shook his head as his troops pressed on though the dim halls lit by the red glow of the emergency lights.

"Claymore!" he hissed. "What's the status of Teams Bravo and Charlie?"

He knew, of course, but wanted to confirm it through their own words.

"Bravo's had some trouble up there--" the small red male retorted, pressing the head set to his ear, his eyes holding a shine of worry.

There was a mental flare as Brooklyn groaned, closing his eyes.

"Chaz! " Clay snarled. "Winchester! Respond, bro!"

"Something's wrong," Jun whispered, unsheathing her katana as she reloaded her AK-47 expertly with one hand.

"Ambush!" Clay growled. "Colt's down! Oh, god, don't let my brother die ... Chaz, what's happening! Dammit, what's--fuck! " He swore, pressing on to another channel. "I lost transmission!"

"No, Claw, they aren't," Brooklyn retorted to the tiger mutate's unspoken question. "Though I don't know about Colt ... he's been injured ..."

"Akira and Sophita are in Bravo Team," Jun then remarked of her mate and the mysterious half-fae healer. "They'll be able to help them..."

"Akira doesn't have much medical training in the field," Clay pointed out, somewhat sardonically. "And Sophita only heals when she feels it necessary."

"As much as I wish we could continue this conversation," Brooklyn grumbled, "we've got work to do. Clay, check in with Charlie Team."

"Cold bastard," the smart-ass gargoyle snarled as he homed in on Arin's frequency. "Charlie Team, report ... why do I not find that surprising?" Clay chuckled somewhat. "Hey, Brook, you'll never guess who's up there on a vengeance trip--and you do..." he shook his head as the Resistance leader nodded his head. "What else, Arin?" there was a few seconds of silence, at least on Clay's end of the set. "Brook, Ed's got something to say..."

"And tell him I want to talk to him! I don't want to go schizophrenic hearing voices in my head!" Eddie shouted loud enough for everyone directly around Clay to hear. He winced, muttered, "Dur Fuhrur!" and forked the headset over to Brooklyn.

"What is it, Ed?"

"Grotesques, Brook. Sevarius had kidnapped Ereinee to force Lexington to work for him ... creating these creatures with both human and gargoyle DNA ... they're huge, Brook ... probably eight feet tall, maybe taller."

"Wonderful..."

"Lex is going to destroy the batch he was working on, but I don't know how many more they might be--shit! Gotta bail, bro! We're being piggybacked!" There was some intangible strings of orders as Eddie took charge of the situation just as the headset fizzled off.

"Okay, troop, let's move!" Brooklyn barked. "We've got anew enemy on the field, so be aware of anything and everything! Jun! Aeneas! Watch the rear!"

"What's the plan?" Clay demanded.

"Strike the heart of the operation," the leader hissed. "Sevarius."

Chaz pulled his wounded brother over to the shadows as Akira, a gargoyle who was in every way physically identical to Eddie save for the gender gap, examined the wound in the dark blue male's temple.

"All I can do is stop the bleeding," Akira whispered, opening up his first aide pack and pulling out some bandages and antiseptic. We'll have to take him back to the Pyramid to treat him."

"Fuck! " Chaz growled. "Alexander! We can only do this once!"

The armoured quarter-fae knelt down beside the unconscious male as the rest of the Charlie Team created a firewall of coverfire for them.

"Can you teleport Colt back to the castle?" Chaz demanded.

"Not without me to guide it," Alexander shook his head. "I'll have to go with him."

"Dammit..." Chaz growled. "And we need you and Akira here..."

"I hate to say it," Akira muttered, "...but we've got to leave him here. If he makes it to sunrise, or we can take him back, that's great. If not..." his stone-grey eyes clouded somewhat. "...he died honourably, in battle, the way bushido demands."

"Fuck you!" Chaz spat. "There's no way in hell I'm going to leave my brother here to die!" Alexander only shook his head as the Ishimura adopted clansman cleaned up the rather nasty laser wound and dressed it.

"It's all we can do, Chaz," Akira whispered, standing us and picking up his own laser.

Chaz stared down at Colt, his eyes narrowing.

"Chaz, we need you..." Alexander remarked, rejoining the fight.

The slate-grey gargoyle nodded, taking a cigarette from behind his ear and a lighter from his pocket. Lighting it up, he took a couple of drags, then with brotherly love, gently placed it between Colt's slightly parted lips. With a salute, he shouted a string of obscenities at the opposing team and, with his own nine-mm and M- 16, opened fire.

"Chaz!"

The lead gargoyle suddenly stopped as the smoke cleared, Akira's hand on his shoulder.

"It's done," Akira remarked. "You've been dry-firing for the last five minutes at corpses."

"What?" Chaz blinked, firing off another burst of his machine gun. It simply dryfired, as the med had said.

"The hallway's cleared. We put Alexander in charge until you would come back to your senses."

The Outklaw nodded dumbly.

"My bro?"

Akira only closed his eyes sadly.

"Won't make it to sunrise," he remarked.

"Fuckin' war!" Chaz roared. "Fuckin'-clones-fuckin'-mutates-fuckin'-death -FUCKIN'- SEVARIUS!!!"

"Come on, bro," the beaked green male hissed. "We need you."

Chaz nodded again. It was funny, in a way.

"First Mag, then Maus, now Colt."

And suddenly, he laughed unexpectedly.

"Smoke one for ol' Colt!" he shouted, pulling out the rest of his pack and handing a cig to Akira, placing one in his own mouth. "Smoke one for Mag, too!" Lighting up, he passed the lighter to his companion before reloading both weapons. "Tonight, we're gonna seek vengeance on all who dare fuck with the Outklaws!"

"Vengeance isn't the way--" Akira protested, trying to hand back the cigarette.

"Fuck this bushido bullshit!" Chaz ordered. "Listen, man, we all thought you died when we were kids. You remember what happened when we found out you were actually alive and well learning kung-fu and watching anime porn in Japan!"

"Jitsu--"

"Whatever. You're still, by blood and clan, an Outklaw! " Chaz snapped, took a drag, then raised an eye ridge. "Or, then again, ol' Edwardo might have died after all."

Akira narrowed his eyes, then, as if he had done it all his life, lit up his cig.

"Fuck you," he grumbled. "I hate it when you make sense, as illogical as it is."

"There we go!" Chaz clapped him on the back. "Eddie would be proud!"

"Let's get the bastard," Akira added, allowing the cig to dangle from his beak.

Eddie knew one thing about being a leader. No matter what, don't let your emotions get in the way of judgement.

Unfortunately, it wasn't as easy as it sounded. Even Goliath had his share of misjudgment. Everyone had a bad day.

And it was a double whammy when everyone's bad day was July the Fourth, in the year of our Lord two-thousand-thirty-eight.

She was having trouble keeping her logic and sanity in control as primal rage and vengeance fought for control.

Meeting up with Chaz's group, she barked out orders to sweep towards the upper labs. The chaos around them created chaos amongst them as the Shockers swarmed.

Everything was shrouded in a red haze from either battle frenzy--

--or blood.

Or maybe both, as more of the Resistance joined the growing legion.

Finally, a strong, clear voice rang out, overriding Eddie's frantic orders.

"Regroup!" Brooklyn shouted. "We need to keep our wits about this! If we go down fighting, it won't be in vain, for we will take this place down with us!"

Pour the gasoline and bum the fucker clean tell me hochicoo I want her! Chaz hooted.

"If they want war--" Renet huffed as the Stealth team joined the growing ranks, "--Then war they'll get!"

"Right on!" Fang shouted.

"I want heavy artillery and automatic weapons up in the front, with smaller rifles and semi-auto pistols flanking! Eddie, Fox, and everyone else in exo-suits bring up the rear!" Brooklyn's orders were heeded to the 'T' as everyone scrambled to comply. "If anyone picks up or finds Lexington and/or Ereinee, try your best to recover them!"

His thoughts darkened, though no one had any clue what private battles he was warring within.

(why?) He thought as the full regiment of Shockers stormed up the hallway and began firing randomly. (i'm going to die either way. why must i continue fighting?) And he looked at Arin, the seemingly-frail gargoyle fighting viciously along side Macbeth as the two led a charge of the lighter cavalry, he found the answer.

(the children,) he realised, raising his own sword and slashing down at the lead Thailog.

Laser fire, conventional bullets, shuriken and crossbow bolts flew between the two sides, as well as the Resistance's menagerie of magical and psionic fire. And suddenly, a flare erupted inside Brooklyn's mind, a warning. He sensed fear--a cry for help that no one could hear--

(bright sun,) he empathed. (i think found ereinee--make sure eddie doesn't go too postal--)

Though outwardly the tan female showed no signs of understanding as she fired off her taze gun and hacked with her short sword at an incoming Shocker, he felt her acknowledgement as a mental nod and a projection of love.

"Angela! Akira! With me!" Brooklyn barked as he attempted to force open a nearby door. The steel was thick; the Resistance leader barely made a scratch. Angela quickly tapped a sequence of buttons on her plasma rifle.

"Stand back," she warned, firing a powerful burst of plasma, melting the steel to the extent on seeing what was on the other side.

"Cover me," he hissed. "If anything happens to me--"

"Brooklyn?" Angela whispered, her eyes almost pleading for an answer to her unspoken question.

He had never told anyone of his strongest premonition, save Angela, and, of late, Eddie. He never knew why he did. He hadn't even told Arin. For some reason, Angela seemed to be the most logical choice.

It was his own death.

"Angela," he repeated. "If anything happens to me, you're in charge of Clan Manhattan."

She opened her mouth to speak, but found herself stuck for words.

She nodded instead, fighting the urge to protest.

"Akira--" he stared quizzically at the dangling cigarette. "When did you start smoking?" The Japanese-raised gargoyle shrugged.

"Getting back to my roots, I guess," he responded. "Listen, you get out of there alive, okay?"

"Yeah," the leader nodded. "Great. Another gargoyle corrupted by the Outklaws."

"I was one to begin with," he snapped back.

"And you openly admit this," Brooklyn smirked as he tapped the metal, making sure it wasn't still hot. Then, wit both hands, he ripped open the hole large enough for him to slip through. Giving the large room a quick scan both mentally and visually, he flipped a thumbs up to the two at the door and ventured further in. There was a hiss, a sliding sound--

"BROOKLYN!" Angela shouted as the red gargoyle pivoted on his foot and raced back to the door, just in time to witness a titanium blast door sliding into place in front of the ruined portal. He swore, diving to catch it, but was too late. Frantically, he attempted to claw his way out, then forced all the energy he could muster from the Wastelands onto the new door.

Barely a dent was his only accomplishment.

"Dammit! If he swore, giving the door one last punch. "Dammit, dammit, dammit!"

"I'm sorry, Brooklyn--I didn't want it to be this way--"

"Lexington?" He turned his head ever so slightly to view his smallest rookery brother--

--tracking a semi-automatic S&W pistol on him.

"What the hell--?" Brooklyn stood his full height, staring down at the small cyborg. "Lexington, what the hell has gotten into you--"

"They're making me choose, Brook," he whimpered, his brown eyes wide in terror. "Kill you, or they kill Ereinee--"

"Where is she, Lex?" he demanded softly. "We'll get her for you--"

"It's not that simple!" Lex cried, sighing. "I wish it was--but it isn't--they're watching me all the time--but I can't do a damn thing wrong, or else Ereinee'll pay for it

Brooklyn's eye ridges furrowed. What a predicament they were in!

"I don't want to kill anyone!" Lex continued. "I didn't even really want to help out in the war! I would have loved to return to Delphi with Chimura and Ereinee and be away from all this bullshit!" He looked down at himself and sighed heavily. "I wouldn't even be this half-living freak--"

"Lexington, listen to me--" Brooklyn whispered, though really unsure what to say. His premonitions were silent. This was it. "Lex, you've got to do what is right, then. Do you believe Sevarius will harm Ereinee if you did kill me?"

The cyborg's eye ridges shot up, confused. Even with the positronic implants, the logic circuits were clashing with his emotions drastically.

"Brooklyn?" Lex whispered in a tiny, barely audible voice.

"Yes, Lex?"

"I love you, rookery brother," he concluded, and the bullet escaped the chamber in a flash of gunpowder and lightning, Brooklyn fell back, his hand to his breast, just above his armour.

"I'm sorry," Lex whimpered, then disappeared into the darkness of the room.

***
Mason Homestead
The early morning of July 4, 2078
3:00 am

The rhythmic creaking of the rocking chair hypnotised its occupant, forcing her to close her single stone-grey eye, disregarding the worn Stephen King novel in her hand. "Eyes of the Dragon" was usually her favourite by him, but her mind began wondering from Prince Peter unjustly imprisoned for the death of his father, King Roland, in the Needle.

She yawned, pushing a stray lock of grey from her face.

"Face it, Ed," she sighed to herself, "you're getting old."

"Age is a state of mind over matter," someone in front of her stated. "If you don't mind, it doesn't matter."

Eddie finally accepted that Joshua Lawerence had his father's voice; at least she didn't call him Magnum when he spoke anymore.

"Clich‚, Joshua Lawerence," she muttered, standing up, her hip protesting. "Face it: your poor mother is getting old."

She literally had to look up at the other gargoyle; nearly seven feet tall, Joshua Lawerence was the spitting image of his father, save for his mother's skin tone and eyeridges. And that was another thing: he didn't have a nick name. No one dared call him Joshua, Josh, Larry, whatever, the same reason why his mother was always called Eddie and not Edwidge. It was and always would be Joshua Lawerence.

"Mom, Aunt Mercedes is arriving in a few minutes."

A smile lurked up her face.

"It's about time!" She smirked. "I was wondering when she'd get out of that muggy Greece once and for all!" She swung her silver braid over her shoulder--it had taken forty years to get it back to the same length she had it before the Wars, though it had lost its golden hue--and, with her son trailing her, exited out to the barn.

Surprisingly, no one was around.

Wait a minute.

"Joshua Lawerence," she hissed. "Where's the kids?"

"Um..." he ran his hand over his platinum hair he kept shoulder-length and tied back into a ponytail. "I dunno..."

"For that matter, where's everyone else?" She raised an eye ridge. Joshua Lawerence shrugged.

"Wonderful," she grumbled. "One reason why I'm glad Stil's leader and not you. You'd have a difficult time keeping track of everyone."

"I'm perfectly happy as the philosophical pillar of our society."

"Ha ha. You're funny." She pointed a talon at his chest. "Even I was able to read the entire 'Way of the Peaceful Warrior' cover to cover. You got through the first three chapters and gave up on it."

"Too deep for my taste ... give me Dilbert any day."

She chuckled, pushing down her eyepatch over her vacant left socket. It was too itchy to wear all the time; she only put it on nowadays when they received company.

And company came, in a big black jet that should have been decommissioned decades ago, setting down in the fallowing corn field about two hundred meters from the homestead. The wind from the hover engines flattened the tall haying grass as the pilot touched down and cut the engine, returning the field to its normally placid state.

Abruptly, the sliding exit cracked open, allowing the ladder to descend mechanically.

"Goddammit, you'd think she'd do something a little more methodical," Eddie mumbled. "If God wanted us. to fly, we would have given us stronger wings."

"It's pretty hard to glide over the Atlantic from Delphi, Mom."

"True," she shrugged as the rather large group of gargoyles immerged from the belly of the beast. "Did she bring the entire clan or something?"

"Nope," Joshua Lawerence smiled broadly. "Looks like she made a pit stop in Manhattan. Kat! Tom!" He waved, then bolted toward two of the figures, catching the two smaller into a great big bear hug.

"Air!" Tom squeaked, pointing to his throat.

"Sis!" Mercedes squealed, running to her rookery sister and tackling her. "It's so good to see you again!"

"Watch the hip!" Eddie hissed. "It's good to see you too, Mercedes. We've missed you around here."

"Hope you don't mind, but we brought the kids from Clan Manhattan with us," Aeneas shrugged, giving Eddie a hug as well. "Didn't want to leave them alone in that drafty castle of there's, y'know."

"Oh, that's fine!" Eddie smiled radiantly as she too hugged Kat, Tom, Ereinee, Orpheus, and finally Leigh with the usual "Glad you're here, you've grown so much!" spiel. She hesitated just a second with Luc.

"Well," her hands immediately balled up and placed on her hips. "He doesn't look that much like Brook, does he?" She smirked, regarding the uncomfortable tan male. "Still, you've become a handsome lad, Luc."

"Thank you, ma'am," he whispered, shaking her hand rather than receiving a hug.

"And who is this?" she cooed, seeing the tiny sleeping hatchling in the kiddie-carrier Tom carried.

"This, Aunt Ed, is Sierra," Tom beamed proudly. "Though I really don't want to wake her, or her momma'll kill me."

"Like I'm not going to already," Kat mumbled.

"And who's this?" Joshua Lawerence demanded bluntly, staring eye-to-eye with Tellemacus.

"Tellemacus," he rumbled in a rather antisocial manner.

Joshua Lawerence marrowed is eyes, sensing confrontation and threat.

"Well, I'm Joshua Lawerence." And don't think you're gonna get away with messing with the clan, he thought sourly. He didn't really like the way Tellemacus carried himself and his aura.

"Don't mind him," Leigh whispered to the large green male. "He's always like that around Ereinee, like he's protecting her or something. You should have seen him with Luc."

"Tried to kick his ass?"

"Not yet. Just as long as you don't hit on her, you're all set."

Joshua Lawerence snorted just as a deafening explosion rocked the ground. Smoke billowed from the garage.

"Um, Mom..." he muttered. I think we found the others."

"Joshua Lawerence, go take care of it for me, please. It's too early in the morning for me to wave around my shotgun."

"Gotcha, Mom," the large gargoyle nodded, and jogged over to the garage.

"So, you all came up to celebrate the Fourth with us, eh?" Eddie smiled as her son covered his mouth and nose with the neck of his tee-shirt and waded into the smoking building. "Well, let me warn you, it might be a little ... different ... here than it is in Manhattan."

"A lot more fireworks, for instance!" a small red female raced out of the garage, her unruly curly hair flying behind her, her face peppered with ash marks.

"What did you do now, C-4?" Eddie sighed.

I didn't do anything; Harvey and Dweezil wanted to find an alternate fuel source using gunpowder." She tackled Luc instantly. "Hihihihihihi!"

"Um, hi, C-4." Luc stammered, lost for words.

I missed you, Luc! C'mon! We've got so much to catchup on!" she squealed, taking his arm and dragging him toward the barn. He shot his sister a pleading look as she giggled.

Gunpowder? Aeneas raised an eye ridge. "Definitely Mal's kids."

Eddie shot him a look of warning. Malibu was a touchy subject around her, even before Delilah died five years before.

"Well, why don't you guys make yourselves comfortable in the house--"

"We're missing someone," Mercedes realised, returning to the jet. "You guys go on ahead. Me and Eddie'll join you just as we get the stuff."

"Hey, who died and made you leader?" Eddie chortled. "Go right ahead. Just--" she flipped her thumb to the garage. "--just leave the Platypus Brothers to their own misery."

Mercedes snorted as her rookery sister followed her in.

"So, who else came with you--" Eddie suddenly narrowed her eyes at the small cyborg in the cockpit, her eye glowing red.

"Hi, Ed," Lexington muttered just before she punched him full force on the organic side of his face.

***
2038

I can't believe it! Lexington stared down at his hands. I can't believe I shot my own brother!

I killed my brother...

He shut his eyes, balling up his fists as he heard the titanium door give way to a severe beating by Eddie and Fox. The red-haired man knelt down to examine Brooklyn as Eddie swept the area, scanning for any creatures in the room.

Lexington dodged behind a vacant incubator, taking a deep breath.

Serves him right. He should just march up to the raging redneck and ask for her to kill him.

Eye for an eye, blood for blood, life for life.

However, something drove him not to as he silently crept in the shadows, attempting to get to the far exit.

"I've got something!" she shouted, breaking into a run, her mortar ready. If that didn't frighten Lex enough, the high-pitched screech of Arin chilled him to the bone.

Fumbling with the access code, he finally managed to get the exit open, slipping out and slamming it shut. Breaking into a run, he dashed to the stairwell, where, on the next level up, Ereinee was held prisoner.

"Brooklyn, please forgive me..." he whispered.

"He's still alive, Arin! " Akira remarked as Macbeth held his trembling daughter like a child. "Barely, but he's hanging on!" To Angela, he added, "Well, you're in charge here ... with Eddie after whoever the hell that was..."

Angela choked on what she thought was going to soon be vomit and attempted to clear her mind of any irrational thinking.

"Alexander, I need to know where all high-level personnel are located. Akira, you, Mercedes, and Mori stay with Brooklyn." She ordered sharply, her eyes almost on the verge of flooding.

"I'm staying with him!" Arin protested.

Angela stared deep into Arin's frantic eyes, then pulled her close for a hug.

"I'm sorry, sister," she whispered. "But I need you with me."

"All my time with the clan, I've been loyal to their leaders," Arin muttered. "I'm asking to stay with my mate ... I might never see him again..."

Angela choked again.

"Arin ... please, I'm asking you as a friend ... a sister ... please, I need you with me."

Arin's face contorted, and Angela wasn't sure how she was going to react.

Instead of blowing up or crying, Arin knelt by her fallen mate and, taking his hand, kissed him lightly on the forehead.

"Be strong, my love," she whispered. "Please make it through."

And she stood, rejoining Angela, her head bowed.

"I vowed never to use my fae heritage at the beginning of the Wars," she whispered. "If I did, Oberon would reclaim me for his Gathering. But to lose Brooklyn would be worse. Catch 22."

"Don't, Arin," Angela whispered. "We need you with the clan."

"All on the next floor up. There are about fifty Shockers between here and there," Alexander retorted.

"Wonderful. Okay, gang, let's move! Same pattern as before!" Angela knelt down to a semi-conscious Brooklyn. "You will be avenged, brother, I swear it on my father's name, you will be avenged."

Mercedes took Brooklyn's hand and watched as Angela bolted out after the rest of the Resistance. Mori, a pale yellow gargoyle from Akira's adopted clan, glanced worried at Brooklyn, then Akira, then Mercedes.

"What now?" she whispered.

"I don't know," Mercedes whimpered. "Akira..."

"I'm on it," he retorted, pulling a pair of long tweezers out of his kit. "Shit. First Colt, now Brook. This isn't good ... Mori, hold him ... if he screams, he's still conscious ... good in some instances, bad in others..."

"How many causalities?" Mercedes demanded.

"Twelve down, two dead, not including Brook here ... sorry, bro, but you're gonna have to live with the pain..." he gently inserted the end of the tweezers into the wound. Brooklyn screeched, arching his back. "Dammit, Mori, I said hold him!"

"Not bad, considering what we've been though already," the aquamarine gargoyle remarked sardonically. "Is there anything I can do?"

"Find somewhere where you can get a bowl of water! I need to clean this one ... my, how messy..." the green male probed around for the bullet. "Tell me when it hurts, bro ... aha, there you are, you nettlesome bastard." Slowly, he pulled out the bloody bullet with a crunch and a slurp. "Good news is, Brook, you're gonna live. It missed some vital organs, namely heart, lungs, aorta, genitalia, whatever. Bad news? I had to pull it out of your collarbone. It's cracked at best, broken at worst. We can sling it up for now, but we're gonna have to get you back to the Pyramid to really fix you up--well, what do you know ... I think he's going into shock ... Mercedes, where the hell's that water?!" Covering the wound with a bandage momentarily, he shouted, "Mercedes! The water! I've got to clean this wound! Dammit, It's so much easier to treat bullet wounds than laser, but much messier. Mercedes!"

"Here!" She had emptied out her ammo box and used the waterproof container to hold the water from a sink across the room.

"Thank you. As undistilled as it probably is, we don't have the time to worry about that." Akira quickly washed and dressed the wound. "Shit. He'll live ... but he's losing consciousness fast ... c'mon, Brook ... can you hear me ...? Talk to me!"

"He's not even responding..." Mercedes forced open Brooklyn's eyelid. His pupil was dilating in reaction to the light. Good sign. "Brooklyn, please ... we need you...

... we need you..."

He could hear their voices, far away...

The pain drove him to a new place, not like the Wastelands.

So, this is death, he muttered to himself. I don't see the white light yet.

Maybe death was different to gargoyles than humans.

(champion eternal,) he heard, or rather felt, the voice of a hundred thousand voices speaking as one. (you must not give up yet ... this realm still needs you...)

(my time is done here,) he retorted. (we've won.)

(not yet ... ) the voices continued. (you are the only one who can destroy the evil inside sevarius' head ... )

(what are you talking about?)

(could a human possibly be as corrupted as he alone? he has a demon within him. a demon who seeks death of balance ... )

(and it's been working through sevarius all this time ... ? i find that very hard to believe.)

(you must return one last time, champion eternal. return, and fight one last battle, then you may rest, and begin again.)

(who are you?) he finally demanded.

(we are other aspects of the champion eternal. we are you, gathered through the epochs and aeons. we are one soul, combined from many. we fight for what the multiverses deem balance. we are the veterans of a thousand psychic wars. we are good, we are evil. we are.)

And Brooklyn found himself hurtled back to his wounded, physical body.

The wounded leader bolted up, surprising Akira and Mori and causing Mercedes to scream.

Eyes wide, he glanced around frantically, disorientated.

"Brooklyn!" Akira exclaimed. "You had us worried for a minute!"

"More like a half-hour!" Mercedes gasped for breath.

"We thought we lost you." Mori added.

"I'm not dead?" he winced as he touched his breast.

"Unless you're a zombie, nope," Akira helped him to his feet. "Your collarbone is cracked, maybe fractured, and you lost some blood. We re taking you back to the Pyramid--"

"No. " Brooklyn stepped away from the three. "No, I can't return, not yet--"

"You've got to!" Mori whimpered. "You're injured!"

"So's Eddie. That's not stopping her," he retorted, searching for his dai-katana. Seeing it a few feet away, he caught hold of it with what could pass as telekinesis but he knew it was something much more complex and pulled it toward his hand. Trying to hold it two-handed, he winced again as his left arm moved ever-so-slightly. "Looks like I'm using it one-handed."

"Brooklyn, you can't be serious!" Mori protested. "Eddie's almost healed and wearing an exo-suit! Your wound is fresh!"

"It's only a flesh wound," he quoted the infamous Monty Python line that had become the unofficial slogan of the Resistance. He stormed out, leaving the three to ponder what the hell just happened.

"All in favout of following, say 'Aye'," Akira stated.

"Aye!" Mori and Mercedes retorted.

"The 'ayes' have it. Let s go."

***
Eyrie Pyramid

"It's just not the same without Daddy and Mom," Kat whined as Smith flipped some burgers over the large patio barbecue.

"They'll be back, kiddo," Wes ruffled her white hair. To his cohort, he added, "Y'know, we should be out there, covering live the close of Sevarius's tyranny."

"Sure," Smith nodded. "We can do that you can't even fire a laser straight.

"What I'm surprised is that Broadway stayed here," Wes remarked.

"Uncle Brook thought it best that he stayed with us," Kali, Colt's daughter from a small- time affair with one of the Clan Stewart Islanders, stated. "At least he can protect us, unlike a certain pair of cut-ups."

"Dammit, I knew the Outklaws should have stayed a 'gentlemen only' club!" Smith cried out. "Look what happens when females enter our sacred fraternity!"

"We defend ourselves," Stiletto grumbled, grabbing a beer from the cooler. Wes slapped her hand and swiped the bottle.

"You can't have any; you re too young," he scolded, twisting the cap off for himself.

"Why? You guys were drinking since you were twenty."

"Yeah, but we didn't have parental supervision like you do, " Smith snorted.

"What are you two corrupting the kids with this time?" Broadway demanded, joining the children.

"Stil tried to sneak a beer, Dad," Tom snitched.

"Do I expect less of her?" The blind gargoyle smirked. "Stil, do you really want to end up like these two?" He waved in the general vicinity of the Moronic Duo.

"No, Uncle Broadway," she shook her head.

"Hey, we're perfect role models! " Smith protested, smiling dumbly. "Just ask--um-- Bastet! Ain't we perfect role models?"

The bookish little mutate, about ten years old, glanced up from her psychology book, her mixed feline blood creating an interesting and exotic appearance with her dark grey fur with lighter grey stripes and a leonine mane kept in long thick braids.

"Yeah," she mumbled, returning to her reading. "Sure. Whatever."

"I mean, look at Sombrero!" Wes nabbed the passing-by gargoyle. Sombrero grinned crazily, exposing fine jagged teeth along both sides of his long, stork-like beak. Wes slapped him upside the head, causing Sombrero's namesake to topple off his head. "Okay, don't look at Sombrero."

"Wes, realise who you're talking to," Smith groaned, hiding his face with the spatula.

"Oh--well, oops--sorry, Broadway--I didn't mean it personally--"

"No harm taken, boys," Broadway shrugged. "Um--where's Joshua Lawerence?"

It had to be the sonic collar, Wes thought curiously, for him to know which little hellion wasn't in the ranks.

"Sent to the rookery with a couple of the other children," Smith rolled his eyes. "Apparently, they got into a fight, and Monika sent them down there to cool off."

Broadway didn't know what to think about that. His first reaction was to laugh, though it was kind of deja vu.

"Which kids?"

"Um--Kai's kid, Hikaru, and one of the Kiwispawn, Slate."

"Those three never get along--" Broadway groaned, though somehow found himself thinking back across the millennium when he, Lexington, and Brooklyn were a little older than Stiletto, sent to the rookery for causing trouble with the human refugees.

And he couldn't help but to think what happened after that night.

"Joshua Lawerence, you get us in trouble every single time! " Slate growled, slumping in one of the molded plastic chairs. His thick New Zealand accent hurt the Maine gargoyle's ears.

"If you hadn't made that comment about my momma--" Joshua Lawerence, a bulky kid of about the equivalent of a human ten-year-old, balled up his fist angrily.

"Both of you!" Hikaru snarled, his eyes glowing. "Your arguments are getting on my nerves! " He folded his arms over his thin chest and snorted. He was only down here because he had tried to break up the two brawlers. He knew Slate was in the wrong; the only one of the three who wasn't hatched in this very rookery, he arrived at the Eyrie Pyramid as a stowaway seeking adventure. A chronic instigator, Slate's favourite pastime was making cracks about everyone. It just so happened Joshua Lawerence was around to hear Slate poke fun at "Crazy Eddie", which, true to his mother's nature, sent Joshua Lawerence into a vicious frenzy. Hikaru tried to break them up when Monika pulled them apart and simply hauled all three of them to the rookery.

Yawning, the Japanese-descent gargoyle stretched gracefully, and then, out of boredom, worked on his katas.

Joshua Lawerence, curious, watched him intently as Slate mutters something about "Damn rednecks."

"At least we're not afraid of hard work," Joshua Lawerence retorted.

"You sayin' I'm lazy, mate?"

"I'm saying you're lazy, ayuh."

"That's what I thought," Slate jumped up and socked the much larger gargoyle.

"The two of you! Grow up!" Hikaru shouted as the green gargoyle snagged hold of the Kiwi and forced his arm into an uncomfortable position.

"Kiwi's asking for trouble," Joshua Lawerene growled as the boys heard a loud crack. Slate winced, though he felt no pain. Confused, he opened his eyes and examined his arm Joshua Lawerence had just released in surprise. Nothing was broken.

"You're lucky, mate," Slate growled. "If you broke my arm, there would be hell to pay-- "

"Shut up!" Hikaru growled. "I know what the cracking was!"

"What?" Slate and Joshua Lawerence both exclaimed.

Hikaru said nothing, only pointed to one of the eggs nearby --

--With a large crack zigzagging down its shell.

"Shit!" Slate snarled. "I didn't do it!"

"I'm going to get Aunt Monika," Joshua Lawerence exclaimed, frightened, as he bolted to the door. Throwing it open, he shouted, "Aunt Monika! One of the eggs!"

Monika dropped her hamburger as she raced to the rookery without a thought.

"You three! Out! Now!" She ordered with a snarl.

"Make up your mind," Slate grumbled as he and Hikaru filed out.

"I don't want to hear your mouth for the rest of the night, Slate!" she roared, causing him to yelp. Slamming the door behind her, the three stared flabbergasted at the sudden urgency of this clutch's rookery mother.

"Do you think she thinks we cracked one?" Slate whispered.

"Probably," Joshua Lawerence grumbled.

"Most definitely," Hikaru retorted, realising Monika's outburst raised some audience as all the remaining Resistance gathered around the door.

"What did you boys do now?" Broadway sighed.

"Nothing, Uncle Broadway!" they protested.

"Wonderful," he snorted. "Huey, Louie, and Dewey deny everything--"

Kat and Tom pushed their ways to the front of the crowd, wide-eyed with curiosity.

And they waited silently, patiently. The burgers left on the grill were forgotten.

A half-hour passed, and suddenly, the doors were pushed open gently, as Monika carried out a hatchling shrouded in a white blanket. She was smiling broadly.

"Who's twerp is it, Mom?" Stiletto shouted, breaking the silence as everyone else rifled the same question in different syntax.

"Let's just say--" Monika gently handed the newly hatched gargoyle into Kat's arms. "Kathryn's got a new baby brother."

Kat squealed happily as she held the tiny newcomer, studying his peaceful tan face. Strangely, they hadn't heard him cry out or anything, nor did he now. He just simply stared at her with round, curious eyes of the brightest emerald green, just like their mother's. He yawned suddenly, his tiny beak opening to expose perfect little teeth. Regarding Kat one more time, he drifted off to sleep.

"He's so cute!" Kat whispered. Slate glanced over her shoulder.

"You guys are too caught up in bloodlines," he grumbled. "Our elder said that we were supposed to look at the entire clan as our parents, and our clutch as our brothers and sisters." There was some awe in his voice, however, like he had never seen a hatchling before.

"Times change, Slate," Broadway retorted. "When I was growing up, we never had any names." He sighed somewhat. "It shows how much we've progressed, or regressed, in some instances, over the years, as a race and as one large clan."

"I can't wait until Mom and Daddy return," she beamed. "What a what an excellent day to be hatched on, eh, little brother?"

He yawned again in what might have been agreement if he understood. Opening his eyes again, the young one gazed back up at his sister.

***
Mason Farmstead
July 4, 2078
Just before sunrise

Of course, C-4 did all the talking, as she was famous for. All Luc did was nod and respond to when she asked any questions.

However, she shocked him by asking him the worst question.

"So, you find a girlfriend yet?"

He choked somewhat on his Coca-Cola.

"Still looking, I suppose," he mumbled, a little depressed.

"Sucks, doesn't it?" she smirked. "Y'know, I know you like Ereinee--"

He blushed somewhat.

"--but, if you want my honest opinion, I'd stay away from her. That Tellemacus dude's not worth trying to get her. Hell, he makes Joshua Lawerence antsy."

"She's beautiful, though," he whispered, downtrodden.

This seemed to hurt C-4.

"The more beautiful, the more trouble," she retaliated. "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, or the beer-holder, as my old man would say.

"I don't think she's your type anyway, Luc," she continued. "She's probably the type who wants some he-man who has no brains to speak of" She stared down at her hands. "Or, she's oblivious to every advance known to man."

They sat for a little while longer up in the loft of the barn, staring out to he lightening sky.

"What do you find attractive in a girl?" she asked.

"I don't know--I've never really known many other gargoyle females my age--" he shrugged. "Ereinee's older than me by twelve years."

"Older women--stay away from them, bro," she warned. "Joshua Lawerence got burned big time by Stiletto. Big time. She's twenty years his elder. " She glanced out to the garage, where all the other "kids" save Joshua Lawerence and Ereinee were gathered. "What about Leigh? She's your age."

"She's pretty and all, but she's a little too--I don't know--"

"Valley girl." C-4 snorted. "Ditzy. Or at least acts it. Um--" She tried to think of anyone else their age. There was only one other female she knew.

"What about me?" she whispered softly.

He turned his head ever so slightly to gaze at her, his eyes narrowed in confusion.

"What?"

"Do you think I'm pretty?"

"C-4--yes, you are, but--" he ran his hand through his thick brown hair. "--the last time we saw each other was ten years ago! I just arrived a couple of hours ago, if that--"

"Luc," she sighed, then shook her head. "Forget it. Just forget I mentioned it."

"Jesus, Mom!" Joshua Lawerence examined his mother's hand, all fingers save her thumb broken. "What the hell did you do?"

"Father?" Ereinee whispered as Lexington touched his bruised flesh on the right side of his face.

"I told you this was a bad idea," he grumbled.

"I warned you not to show your face around here!" Eddie growled, wincing as Joshua Lawerence splinted her fingers.

"I didn't come here by choice!" He rifled back. "Mercedes talked me into it!"

"Blaming it on my rookery sister?" Eddie's eye flared red, standing up forcefully as the sun rose in the east, solidifying the warring gargoyles.

***
2038

Lexington caught Mauser, swinging him into the wall forcefully.

"Hey, bro, whazzup?" Mauser questioned casually.

"Where's Ereinee?" he growled. "I did what you asked me to. Where's my daughter?"

"You did it?" Mauser gasped. "You killed Brooklyn?"

"Yeah; now Ed's on my ass like a hell hound. Where's my daughter?"

Oil can't believe it. You? Killed your own brother?"

"Would you kill one of your's if you were to choose between them and Stiletto?"

The eerie green glow of Mauser's eyes flickered.

"Where's my daughter?"

"Stil--" Mauser whispered.

"Mauser, I'm loosing my patience! Where the hell is my daughter?!" He took hold of Mauser's throat by his left hand, the cybernetic one.

"Laboratory 4C! " he blurted out suddenly.

"4C? The grotesque's lab?" Lexington dropped the gasping gargoyle and bolted down the hall.

"Fuck," the brainwashed Outklaw swore, rubbing his throat as he stood.

Suddenly, he heard heavy footsteps coming up behind him.

"Shit," he growled.

"Fancy meeting you here," Eddie snarled, sticking the mortar barrel against his back.

"Listen, Ed, let's make a deal!"

"I'm not in the mood for Monty Hall!"

"No, serious! I know who shot Brooklyn! I'll tell you who if you let me live!"

"Fuck you."

"Not now; Mag might get jealous."

She jabbed him sharply, a warning.

"Ow! Fuck! Listen, Lexington shot Brooklyn! He's been helping us with the grotesque project! In order for us to get what we wanted, we had to make him aide us. We nabbed his daughter and brought her here! But Lilith got the brilliant idea to use her as a way to kill Brooklyn, so that you guys would think you'd have a traitor in your ranks, sending the Resistance into chaos and allowing Sevarius to get the upper hand!"

"Where is he now?"

"Lex? Lab 4C."

"Mauser?"

"Yeah?"

"You talk too much," she snapped, slamming her elbow into the base of his neck. He grunted and fell into unconsciousness.

"That is for Brooklyn," she grumbled, adding as an afterthought with a tint of regret, "and for you, bro."

"What's for me?"

Eddie's eyes widened as she turned to face Brooklyn.

"What the hell--?" she whispered. "I thought we lost you, bro--"

"Not yet, Ed," he shook his head. She noticed his left arm was in a sling. "Collarbone saved me. Can't move without pain, but I'll be all set until we get back to the Pyramid."

"Lab 4C," Eddie retorted quickly as the sounds of battle drew closer. "Let's go before Lexington gets into any deeper hot water than he already is in."

Brooklyn nodded, his sword ready in his right hand. It seemed off-balanced, though-- unlike its shorter brother, the katana, the dai-katana--literally, "long sword"--was meant to be a two-handed sword.

"You going to be okay, bro?" she whispered, catching him somewhat when he staggered.

"We've got to finish this once and for all," he hissed.

"Agreed," Eddie nodded, glancing up at the room numbers. Stopping in front of one door, she shot a glance at her leader, her friend.

"Ready, Brook?" she whispered.

He nodded, grasping the hilt just below the guard.

"On three," she hissed. "Three!"

Kicking outward, her metal-clad leg connected sharply with the steel door. It was evident that it wasn't designed to take the stress of a pissed-off gargoyle in an exosuit as it crumpled like a sheet of tin foil.

Mortar ready, Eddie marched in ahead of Brooklyn. A blip on her inventry appeared in the helmet by her right, indicating a limited amount of mortar shells left.

She would have to use them wisely and sparingly.

Abruptly, she recognised where they were.

Taking a deep breath, she directed her thoughts to Brooklyn

I know where we are, she thought. I came in from the other end of the lab.

(that's why i smell napalm,) he smirked somewhat. "Oh, shit," she muttered under her breath. Brook, those incubators ... those incubators were all full a couple of hours ago.

(what was in them?)

Grotesques.

Suddenly, his mindscape was bombarded with black holes.

"Fuck! Eddie, on guard!" he shouted, slashing out into the shadows. There was a grunt, but whatever hid in the darkness stayed in the darkness.

"I'm on it!" She snarled, bringing her trackers online. Leveling her right arm, she stood back-to-back with Brooklyn, awaiting for any other movement from the hidden creatures.

"I don't like this," he whispered.

"No shit," Eddie remarked, no blips picked up on her radar. "Fuck ... they're cloaked somehow!"

"That wouldn't be a bad idea."

"I've still got my refractor," she stated.

(go for it!) he 'pathed. (i'll be all set!)

You sure?

(positive! cloak and strike!)

" 10-4," she nodded, diving into the shadows as she activated her stealth mode.

Eddie, caught a movement nearby.

"Hi, asshole," she snarled. "Bye, asshole."

"Eddie! Wait!" Lexington called out, catching her arm. "Don't shoot!"

"BASTARD!!!" Her eye flared angrily as she spun in her step, leveling her weapon into the cyborg's face. "Give me one good reason why I shouldn't blow your brains out right here and now!"

The light in her eye died when she saw who Lexington was carrying in his arms.

Ereinee, her eyes wide with fear as she buried her head into her father's shoulder.

"I never really wanted to be a part of this war, Ed," he whispered. "I was never strong enough to withstand it."

"Dammit," she cursed. "What of the grotesques?"

"They won't harm anything unless they're attacked," Lex explained. "They haven't received orders from Sevarius yet."

"I told you to destroy them!" she snarled.

"They're life, Eddie, regardless," Lex whispered. "They're neither clones nor mutates, but a new form of sentient being, built from scratch." He shook his head. "I couldn't destroy them like I couldn't destroy Ereinee."

"I want to go home," the tiny girl whispered.

"Hey, what's with Mauser passed out--" Akira demanded as he, Mori, and Mercedes entered the room, weapons at the ready.

"I knocked him out." Eddie pointed to Akira. "We've got to take him back ... see if we can get him back into his right mind."

"Let's rejoin the group, then ... Lex..." Eddie faced the cyborg once more. "Return to the Pyramid, and stay there."

Her voice still held a tone of venhemence to it as she spoke.

"Brooklyn--" she beckoned, though finding their leader no where to be seen. "Brooklyn! Where the hell did you go? Damn!" She growled, trying to size up the situation. "Dammit ... Mercedes, Akira, find him, and be careful. I've got a Resistance to lead." She didn't mean the least bit boastful. "C'mon, Mori. You're with me."

Too much was at stake to be screwing around, Brooklyn thought sourly. True, he thought the world of all of the people who chose to follow him; however, he was sick and tired of watching his friends and family die around him.

It ended tonight, once and for all.

And, if that voice of voices was correct, Sevarius was just a pawn in this game as well. He reached out mentally, searching for his prey.

There.

He felt the human panic suddenly as the gargoyle probed deeper, penetrating thoughts.

A red barrier of pain jarred Brooklyn out of his semi-trance. It burned, like he had physically touched something hot.

No human could have possibly created a shield that powerful to drive even him out. Not even RC in her prime...

Though lost his anchor, he still could sense Sevarius bolting.

He bolted, running a little lopsided on his left side.

Dammit! It hurt like hell!

It wasn't Lexington's fault, though. H