Author's note: This story should take place after the travelers' return to Manhattan. This was written prior to the Gathering and Future Tense, so ignore anything that is discontinuous. It also assumes the reader has knowledge of most important events and characters in the television show.

Trials

Chapter 1: An Unwelcome Guest Dawn was approaching, a pinkish hue on the unblemished horizon. The only sounds in the clock tower were the soft whine of the television and a light, groaning wind from the balcony. Bronx lay stretched out like a lumpy throwrug on the floor, one ear raised in mock attention to the TV. Hudson was sprawled on the Laz-E-boy chair in an undignified heap. He clicked off the television. "This early in the morning, you may as well stare at the walls for entertainment...," he muttered. Bronx groggily sat up, then moved closer to the chair and collapsed at Hudson's feet. "I know how ya feel, boy," Hudson said, leaning over to scratch Bronx's head. Outside, the others were just returning from their nightly patrol. One at a time, Broadway, Lexington and Goliath swung in and gracefully landed on the balcony. "Patrolling alone is no fun," Broadway murmured to Lexington, "Goliath should let us work in groups more often." From where he was perched in thought, Goliath turned to them. "I heard that. We cover less ground as a group. It would be no way to protect the whole city if we were always in one place," he asserted himself. "But it does get lonely..." he muttered to himself. In the distance, Brooklyn and Angela were gliding in together- not coincidentally, Goliath thought. Once they had perched, he stood up to his full height and faced them. "I see you two managed to find each other despite our solitary patrol." Angela blushed slightly and Brooklyn looked positively sheepish. "Nevermind... I'll deal with this later. The sun is upon us..." Lexington tugged on Brooklyn's wing to get his attention. "I don't think he's gonna go easy on you next time..." Brooklyn leaned over out of earshot of anybody but Lex. "It's worth it...you'll understand-" "Right," cutting him off, "when I grow up." Lex rolled his eyes and Brooklyn chuckled. Hudson joined them on the balcony, taking up position beside Angela. The sun's rays eagerly spilled out over the Manhattan skyline, and within moments the only noise was the distant cooing of pigeons. *** The day passed without event. *** Dusk. Goliath awoke with a trademark roar, nearly giving the nearby pigeon population a heart attack. Brooklyn and Hudson shook themselves off and groggily looked around. The three were alone on the balcony. Brooklyn shook his head in disbelief, "What's going on here? Where are Lex and Broadway? Where's Angela...and Bronx?" "Heads up, lads," Hudson warned them, "We have a visitor." Hovering at least a foot off the ground at the entrance was a curious looking fellow with bright, crimson hair. He wore a fancy looking tuxedo, offset somewhat by a goofy pair of green shoes that were at least a few sizes too big. There was a pale blue aura about him, and he had a childish smile on his narrow face as if enjoying some private joke. "Pleased to meet you... Goliath is it? Yes...yes and Brooklyn and Hudson too. I've heard so much about you all." Goliath regarded him coolly, "Who or what are you? What have you done with the others?" "Your pretty testy aren't you? Well, if you must know... I'm Bond. James Bond. Agent 007." "Well Mr. Bond... I suggest you explain..." Goliath started. Brooklyn suppressed a most inappropriate laugh. "Uhh, Goliath..." Brooklyn nudged the clan leader. "DRAT!" the fellow exclaimed, "I was hoping none of you had seen the films. Oh, well. Fine then... I am Flicker... faery extraordinaire! I was sent here by-" "You're a faery?" Hudson asked. "DON'T interrupt me. As it was, I was just about to tell you who sent me. Good thing you stopped me or I wouldn't hear the end of it. Anyway... yes where was I?" Goliath took a deep breath. "You were about to tell us why you are here and what you've done with my clan." His eyes betrayed the first glimmers of rage. "Clan...shman. They're all fine. I just put them... put them... oh dear. I can't quite remember." Goliath growled in contempt. Brooklyn, deciding it would be wise to play along, continued the conversation. "Were you sent here by Oberon... or Puck?" "Who?" Flicker asked. "Puck." "Young man, don't use such language in my presence. Anyhow... my orders are to return your friends from... from wherever they are, once you three have carried out my tasks." Flicker lazily swam in circles through the air. "Yes...I remember now. The three clan leaders... past, present and future." "What tasks?" Hudson growled. "STOP interrupting me. You gargoyles are all the same... in one ear and out the other. I'll start with Brooklyn... oh but pardon me. You can't hear each other's task. That wouldn't be much fun." Flicker snapped his fingers and Goliath and Hudson turned to stone. "Much better." Alone in the company of the fey, Brooklyn crouched defensively. Flicker continued, "Listen up and listen well, gargoyle. At one point in the next 24 hours, your friend Angela will materialize, wings bound quite well I assure, about forty stories up over first avenue... where it meets Brooklyn street. The irony is intended. If you're not there to catch her, well... it will be a short funeral, I'm afraid. I hope the driver she falls on is insured..." "You're a monster! If anything happens to her so help me I'll..." Brooklyn raged. Flicker looked at his watch, concernedly. "Well, now... ten seconds gone. I hope lady luck is patient." Brooklyn paused for a moment, then bolted for the balcony and dived. Flicker laughed to himself. "There now, he got the message. Next!" Goliath erupted from his stone encasement, giving Flicker a glance that managed to incorporate rage, confusion and awe in one look. He noticed that Brooklyn was gone, and rage quickly gained the upper hand of his emotions. "What have you done with him?" "Relax, would you?" Flicker swam in a lazy somersault like someone enjoying a stroll through the park. His blue glow expressed itself more as the sun grew more distant and the sky slowly darkened into evening. "Your chief officer is in no danger. I gave him a task that requires patience and wits, nothing more. You aren't quite so lucky." Flicker's eyes deepened from the original green hue to a crimson. Just looking at all of Flicker's color was beginning to hurt Goliath's eyes. "Listen well, O wise clan leader," Flicker began. "I have loosed an enemy from your past into the streets of Manhattan. You will find this foe... at the place where a wolf lost an eye. If you aren't quick enough, your clan members will suffer... but not at my hand. Apprehend your enemy and you shall pass the test. Be off with you know!" he yelled with a shooing gesture. Goliath vanished into thin air. With a self-satisfied chuckle, Flicker released the last gargoyle. Hudson shook his stone skin off, getting up slowly. "Ahhh, Hudson. Named for the river right?" "Aye," Hudson answered warily. "Pay attention now, "Flicker licked his lips, his eyes warping to a charcoal gray. " A gargoyles can no more stop protecting the castle than breathing the air... your own words. So be it. Protect the castle, or your friends stop breathing the air. Simple enough, given your expertise at protecting chunks of stone. Xanatos and his companion are elsewhere at the moment. Go on then, shoo!" Hudson disappeared in the same manner as Goliath. Flicker looked about himself in satisfaction. Everything was dead silent. "Sometimes I surprise myself..." he muttered. "Stop breathing indeed...HA! Puck will get a good, hearty laugh out of this one. Well, no rest for the wicked..." Flicker pirouetted delicately like a ballerina in the air, then blinked out of existence in a furious blaze of color. The sound of approaching footsteps rang through the hall. "Guys?" Elisa's voice echoed quietly in the clock room. "They must have been off in a hurry..." she muttered to herself. "I was only five minutes late... oh well. I'll see them later."

Chapter 2: Guardians Hudson was dropped in midair a couple hundred feet from Castle Wyvern, as it loomed from atop Xanatos office building. Quickly turning upright, his wings shot out and caught wind. It took Hudson a moment to realize exactly where he was, but when he did he cursed under his breath. "Tricksters..." he mumbled, "always up to something." He glided gently on warm draft towards the castle. Hudson's keen senses detected movement below him on the castle parapet. Metal doors were swinging open, panels sliding back- Hudson was greeted by a laser blast across his shoulder. He cursed himself for forgetting about the automatic defense system. 'With defense like this, what am I supposed to protect the castle from?' he thought grimly as he pulled into a dive. More laser shots skimmed across his side, narrowly missing his wings. As Hudson approached the castle's balcony, his wings shot out and he circled onto the back of one of the laser turrets. 'This trick always fools the machines, maybe he could just-,' Hudson was suddenly jolted as the turret he straddled electrified itself. Hudson fell backwards and landed with a cry of pain on his backside. The turret swiveled about and Hudson scrambled to get out of the way. All the turrets opened fire at the same time, blasting apart the stone where Hudson had been a moment ago. He pounded towards the entrance, then rolled as the turrets blasted again. More stone was torn apart by the lasers. A piece of rock struck Hudson from the blast and he was launched forwards, through the double doors. He lay in a crumpled heap just inside the castle. Hudson was still for some time. *** Brooklyn reached first avenue and landed quietly on the rooftop of an apartment. A quick check revealed that the apartment was eight stories, which would give him enough time to dive out and catch Angela. Now all that remained was to wait. His eyes fixed on one point in the sky, Brooklyn crouched and stood perfectly still. He felt the cold autumn wind around his ankles, a draft climbing the building. The sounds of traffic below slowly became hauntingly monotonous. Brooklyn's knees were starting to complain, so he shifted positions. Somewhere on the street below, a baby started crying. Brooklyn felt something cold and wet land on his beak. A raindrop. It rolled down his beak curiously, like an investigative child. It quickly had company. Standing there, crouching in the cold, feeling the rain beginning to gain strength, Brooklyn had one thought that stood out overwhelmingly in his mind. 'Why me?' *** Hudson groaned in pain. He was bleeding from his left arm and his wings hurt badly. The coldness of the stone floor slowly convinced him to stand. He leaned lightly on the wall for support, feeling another stab of pain from his shoulder. Slowly but purposefully, he shambled down the corridor. 'Can't let the lads down. They need me,' he thought glumly. He felt for his sword for reassurance, putting a hand tightly around the hilt. 'I'm too old for this. Goliath would be better suited to this task...' the thought struck him as funny. He certainly hadn't thought that way when Xanatos had locked him in that cage not too long ago as one of his schemes. And yet here he was, still fighting in another cage of Xanatos' creation. The castle was mockingly silent. Something stirred... to Hudson's left. His ears perked up in response. It was... a mechanical noise. Looking down the left-hand corridor into the inky blackness, he heard another clang and saw a gleam of light on metal. The figure slowly emerged from the shadow, and it's familiar features took Hudson aback. "Coyote!" He shouted as he recognized the sleek design of Xanatos' foray into artificial intelligence. It's wolf-like head nodded in agreement. "It's good to see your memory isn't failing you," came Xanatos' robotic voice from deep within the gold-plated armor. "My upgraded self was too bulky to serve as a guardian here, so he made another. That's the best thing about robots." It pointed it's right arm at Hudson and the blaster panel on it's forearm slid back. "There can always be more." Hudson drew his sword and dived for Coyote's legs. The machine fired, not the laser Hudson was anticipating but a powerful strobe light that blinded him. Hudson missed his dive and landed in a crumpled heap at the foot of the robot. Coyote grabbed the dazed gargoyle by the collar of his leather vest and hoisted him into the air. "It's too bad really. Xanatos respected you very much for your actions involving the cauldron of life. Unfortunately for you," it spoke, "he didn't program it into me." Coyote punched him across the face, and for a brief moment Hudson saw colors he hadn't known existed. *** Goliath sat in his favorite position, that of the thinker, his elbow planted on one knee and his head resting on the palm. He had been dropped squarely on a rooftop downtown by the trickster. The riddle... what had the faery said. The place where a wolf lost an eye. Goliath had not had hostile encounters with wolves in Manhattan. The last time he was even near a wolf was probably before they had been turned to stone when there were still forests nearby. 'Perhaps I'm looking at the wrong end of the riddle,', he reasoned. What had lost an eye... 'Odin!' he nearly said aloud. But Odin had appeared as a bear, not a wolf. And he was all the way across the world. Goliath truly hoped that Flicker was not going to make him return there. Not after all he'd been through with the Eye of Odin anyway... "That's it!" this time he did shout out loud, 'the Eye of Odin turned Fox into a werewolf! It was on Halloween... Fox lost the Eye when Goliath held her against a neon sign. What was it the sign had read... it was...The Golden Cup!' he remembered. With a powerful leap, he soared off the building and turned into the wind. *** When Hudson awoke, he in a room with no light and his head hurt more than his arm. The colors that swam in his head danced before him as the room slowly lit. He thought for a moment that he was hallucinating. The colors gathered into human form, swirling over each other and mixing as if on a painter's tray. As the figure's features became solid, Hudson realized he was looking at Flicker. "Hello, old one," Flicker began. The faery wore a bright green cape that flowed majestically from his orange tunic and gathered around white boots. His hair was still a trademark fiery red. "I believe," Hudson began with visible effort, "that I failed your little game." "You have only failed if you gained nothing. Have you gained anything from this, Hudson?" the fey's eyes locked on to his and turned a serious brown. "Other than a sore arm and head, you mean?" The faery smiled, but still kept his eyes locked in place. "I asked you to guard the castle. Tell me, old one, did the castle need guarding?" Hudson coughed with a grimace. "Nay, it didn't." "Then why did you protect it?" "My clan needed me. You would have hurt them, stopped them from breathing..." "Please," the faery looked more sympathetic, "I'm not a monster. You said the clan needed you. You said that the castle does not. I'm very confused, Hudson. Why is it then, that you waste away in your clock tower day in and day out when your clan might be needing you? Does your television need you?" Hudson was very silent. "Is this... why you're doing all this? To tell me that?" "You are very old, gargoyle," the fey smiled, "but you can still learn new tricks..."

Chapter 3: Wrath's child Brooklyn's knees were cramped to the point of exhaustion. As he stood to his full height, they groaned in some relief. He hadn't eaten anything or even left the rooftop for most of the night. He stretched his wings to their full extension to let them breathe. 'Nothing must happen to Angela,' he thought, keeping a sharp focus on the space above the quiet streets, 'not before I tell her...' his thoughts strayed to his plans to tell her about his true feelings for her. They shot back immediately to his task. It would be dawn in another few hours. He would have to... "DAWN!" Brooklyn said aloud. 'I'll be stone at dawn!' His mind raced for a solution. Why hadn't he thought of this? He'd been thinking of Angela so much it slipped his mind. 'There has to be a way!' Then it occurred to him. He knew exactly what he had to do, but it would be very risky. Taking a deep breath, Brooklyn launched himself from the rooftop and headed for the clock tower a few miles away. *** As Goliath drew close to the Golden Cup, he was alarmed to see a battle in progress on the rooftop. A small crowd looked up from below in curiosity as blue fire lanced about far above their heads. Goliath quickly made out the two forms and his face registered a look of utmost disbelief. The Archmage, Grimorum in hand, was hurling blue fire at what appeared to be Lexington. Goliath swooped in to aid his friend, a barrage of thoughts going through his head. The Archmage was his old self from the clan's days in Scotland, charcoal gray robes and disheveled gray hair. He clung to the spellbook madly, all the while casting sorcerous fire. Lexington swooped in circles to avoid the blasts, but never got close enough to score a hit. Goliath immediately charged in, backed by the roar that had become his trademark battlecry. To the unprepared, the moment's terror that this brought usually signaled the end. The Archmage appeared singularly unimpressed. "Fulminus Benitay!" A searing shot of blue flame caused Goliath to break off his charge. He circled around, looking for another opening but the Archmage gave him none. Out in the open space, it would be difficult to get him with his guard down. Lexington dropped onto the roof on all fours, as if to catch his breath. The Archmage leveled one grainy finger in his general direction and began a spell. "LEX! Look out!" Lexington looked up in time to see a purple cloud spring from the Archmage's hand and cover him from head to toe. Goliath swung past the neon sign and struck the Archmage a glancing blow with his wings. The mage collapsed to the floor with a startled grunt, but Goliath barely took notice. Lexington lay gasping on the ground, covered in the purple dust from the spell. His eyes fluttered madly for a moment, then he lay still and unmoving. Goliath shook him gently. There was no response. He placed his fingers in the way Elisa had taught him to check for pulse. There was none. Goliath's fingered suddenly seized up, some purple residue on their tips. "Poison..." Goliath whispered. The Archmage was beginning to stir. Goliath pounded towards his foe and grabbed him in a vise-like grip around his neck. "MURDERER!" Goliath's claws were drawing blood from the Archmage's neck as the mage's face turned a deeper shade of red. The Archmage's mouth flapped up and down like a fish breathing air. "He was only a BOY, you MONSTER!" Those last words were spoken with so much rage, he could see the Archmage's eyes bulge in their sockets. Goliath tightened his hold. For a brief moment, the Archmage looked amusingly like a pinched balloon. His eyes slowly rolled back in his head and a small but audible whine came from his throat. The whine trailed off and was lost beneath Goliath's growling. Goliath released his hold, and the Archmage's lifeless body slumped to the floor at his feet. No sooner had the body hit the ground than it burst into a miraculous frenzy of colors that assembled wistfully into a man's form. Flicker, garbed in a crimson monk-like robe with bright yellow armbands, looked at Goliath disapprovingly. "Well, clan leader. Look what you've gone and done," he chided sarcastically, "You've just killed two people with one blow. Now, Lexington will be trapped forever." "What are you talking about? YOU! You put Lex into this. It's YOUR fault that he's dead," Goliath felt a sudden urge to lash out and rip his smiling face off. "Dead? Oh no, I'm afraid not. The Archmage put a spell on him which puts the target into a state of suspended animation. It has the effect of stopping the pulse, which is also why your fingers went numb when you touched him. I don't suppose you know the antidote, because if untreated it could become permanent. The Archmage knows the antidote, but then you've just killed him." Goliath stared blankly at his fingers for a moment, unable to feel them at all. Flicker gracefully floated over to where Lexington lay still. He extended his hand and gently touched Lexington's forehead. Lex vanished abruptly. "He's not real, Goliath. As I have said to Hudson, I am not a monster. And I am more than just a snappy dresser. I am a teacher," he grinned as his eyes melted into a milky white. "Vengeance is one of wrath's children, Goliath, and an impatient one indeed. If you don't keep sight of all possibilities, you will find yourself one day in a similar situation. You have become obsessed with your vengeance. You and I both know how close you came to killing Draycon when you falsely believed that he had shot Elisa. Or when you wanted revenge on the captain of the guard after his actions resulted in your clan's death. In both cases, Goliath, you had the wrong man for the crime. Revenge, Goliath, has often been called a dish that is best served cold. Sometimes, it is a dish that is best not served at all..." Goliath met Flicker's gaze evenly, his look reflecting some small degree of newfound respect for the faery. "We'll all discuss this later. I have other business to attend to." With that, the faery was gone.

Chapter 4: Catch of the Day Brooklyn burst into the clock tower, lungs bursting from all the exertion. Every second he delayed, Angela had less chance to live. He ran on all fours to the very end of the room, nearly knocking over Lex's computer. He threw open the closet door and groped into the cubbyhole at the very top. His hand caught on something metallic and circular. Withdrawing it into the light, he found himself looking at the object of his search. The sun pendant. When Angela had told him of their experiences, she had mentioned that certain forest-gargoyles had possession of such amulets. Brooklyn had withdrawn the pendant that Hyena had tried to steal from the museum and shown it to Goliath. Goliath had decided that it was too useful to them to be locked in a museum, and would be safer in their possession, anyway. Brooklyn was back at the balcony in a flash and took off, stringing the pendant around his neck as he did so. He caught a draft and sailed back towards the rooftop as quickly as his tired body allowed. *** When he got back, Brooklyn breathed a hearty sigh of relief. There was no sign of Angela and nothing had changed since he left. He had been gone for under a half-hour, but it felt like a lifetime. Dawn came. Concentrating on the point where Angela would likely be dropped, he barely noticed as the sun's golden warmth touched his body for the first time, shining on his features as if meeting a brand-new playmate. The warmth was invigorating to Brooklyn, and he spent his first few minutes in its light cursing that the gargoyles were denied such a thing by their very nature. The color of dawn, a familiar sight to Manhattan's cranky morning work-force, was fascinating to him. Natural pinks and yellows was almost unheard of at night, when things were predominantly black or green in the city. Brooklyn was so taken by the beauty, he almost missed a small disturbance in the sky. It looked to Brooklyn like the sky was heaving in turmoil just above the intersection. The blueness of the morning sky gathered in one place, into a form that Brooklyn most definitely recognized. Angela. Brooklyn dived as Angela plummeted from the sky, her wings bound to her body in silver chains. He let his momentum put him almost directly beneath her, then opened his wings violently fast. The wind jarred him abruptly and he held in place in the air. Angela landed into his arms with such force, it pulled him downwards before he could straighten himself out. His wings screamed in agony as they attempted to brace the falling pair, and for a moment it felt to Brooklyn that some giant were pulling his wings off, as if from a fly. Somehow, he managed to get them extended enough to glide a small distance and then he crashed none to gently into a tree. Groggy onlookers saw the tree rustle curiously vigorously in the still air, but dismissed it as a quarrel between squirrels. Brooklyn, bracketing Angela firmly in his arms, jumped from the tree and into the shadows of a nearby alleyway. 'They can't see me...' he thought to himself, wondering if this was more of the fey's plot. The blue bundle in his arms stirred slightly. Brooklyn came to another realization. It was daylight now, so why wasn't Angela a statue. He looked at her face closely... there was something unusual about her color as well. Angela's eyes shot open with a start. Her face suddenly warped, her delicate face turning a pinkish hue and narrowing, her hair turning a deep crimson. Flicker's face stared back at him from atop Angela's body, grinning maniacally. "My hero!" Flicker cooed and planted a great, big kiss on Brooklyn's beak. It took all of the stamina Brooklyn still had not to retch. He promptly dropped Flicker, who was laughing uncontrollably. It was a full minute until Flicker had calmed down, and then he burst out laughing again when he saw Brooklyn's expression of sheer disgust. "You're...<chuckle>...you're the sorriest looking sight I've ever seen..." "Yeah, laugh it up you nutjob," Brooklyn grumbled. "I'm sorry...<giggle>... There. I'll stop now. You pass." Flicker suppressed another laugh and they both disappeared. *** They were back at the clock tower. The stone figures of Goliath and Hudson stood next to each other on the ledge. Brooklyn was alone in the company of the fey, who was dressed in a soldier's garb except that it was perverted to his unusual taste in colors. "You did quite well, Brooklyn. I must have underestimated your patience and wits. You came close to failing when you thought only of the short term. Only the wise mind looks for the long-term problems that lie in your path. Foresight is the most useful tool a leader can have. It's the ability to think ahead that makes Goliath a strong leader. For now, you must rest with your friends. Take off the pendant." Brooklyn paused. "What about our friends? Where did you put them?" "Oh, them? They spent a short time on Avalon, where time passes much faster than here. I'll return them soon enough." Brooklyn lowered his head in thought for a moment. He put a hand on the sun pendant reluctantly. "You're enjoying the sun, aren't you?" Flicker asked quietly. "I must go back to my people. You have all learned something from this, I hope. You will need these skills in the days ahead." Flicker watched Brooklyn holding the sun amulet. "You know, you did pass my test... what would you have of me?" "A wish?" Brooklyn asked. "A boon," Flicker smiled, "Nothing permanent. My higher ups would be angry." Brooklyn thought about it for a moment, than decided that he knew exactly what he wanted. -Epilogue- "It's beautiful..." Angela whispered as the sun's rays lit up the balcony where the clan stood as a group. Expressions of joy lit up every clan member's face as the sun cast its cheery light on the clock tower. "In all my years..." Hudson said in wonder. Bronx stood on the ledge and howled playfully at the sun. Lex and Broadway gazed in uncharacteristic silence at the colors of the dawn and the blue of the sky. Only Brooklyn wasn't there. Goliath had explained the strange events of that night, and the gargoyles who had been in Avalon were as surprised as he was when he learned of Brooklyn's unusual request from Flicker. One day of sunlight for the entire clan. "Goliath?" Angela asked her father, "why isn't Brooklyn here to see this?" "He's had a very long night. Let him rest, Angela," came Goliath's reply. He, too, was smiling broadly in the sun's light. With some effort, Angela pulled herself away from the hypnotic beauty to peek inside the tower. Her eyes took a moment to adjust to the dimness. Brooklyn lay fast asleep on the couch, the sun amulet clutched tightly in one hand and a wide grin on his face...