Volume #19: "The Bowels"

These were the passages of the Labyrinth.

And to Slash, they felt like home. As they should have.

The mute mutant trudged through the murky darkness, almost on instinct. Behind him, his companions struggled to keep up.

"You're kidding, people used to live here?" The Avalonian gargoyle Rain's voice echoed through the darkness.

"Regrettably, yes." Alexander Xanatos, in a massive suit of armor, confirmed the information. "One of my father's more ... infamous enterprises was the Labyrinth clan. He's regretted his partnership with Anton Sevarius for years because of them."

Rain nodded. "So, why were they here?"

"Because they chose this place to live. Their leader, Talon, was a bit headstrong and he and Goliath really never did get along well. Even when Goliath and the Clan moved back to the castle, Talon and his clan chose to stay down here."

"Besides, it wouldn't be very good for little Rose if her father and uncle were constantly trying to kill each other." The resonating voice startled everyone in the tunnel. The owner of the voice wasted no time in making his presence known before the searchers.

Coyote.

With a wave of an arm, the entire tunnel became bathed in light. Alexander removed his helmet and glared at the Native American fae trickster. "And why couldn't you do that earlier?"

"It's all about timing, my friend." Coyote strode down the corridor, past Slash. "What exactly are we looking for, anyway?"

"Daddy dearest kept a cache of weapons down here for just such an emergency as an alien invasion. I'm hoping it's still here." Alexander caught up with Slash and Coyote, with Rain not far behind. "At any rate, he never told Talon or Maggie about it. He was afraid they would lash out at him, what with young Slash here a growing boy in those young days."

Once Rain had caught up, he noticed the strange looks he garnered from Coyote. Brushing them aside, he added, "then let's find them. We'll need them if we have any chance against the Rokkans."

Ariana sat watching her egg, in a funk. Even Nudnik placing his head in her lap couldn't shake her fog. Graeme sensed her sadness and approached her softly.

"You still miss him."

She shed a silent tear. "Yes. How can I not? Oh sure, he's a cyborg and rapidly-aged, but ..."

She didn't need to say any more. Graeme brought his sister into an embrace. "I'll always be here for you, Ari. You know that."

"And we will, too."

The deeper, older voice startled everyone, as they turned to see two very familiar older gargoyles standing there with them. The twins stood up, eagerly running into the older ones' embrace.

Lexington's question fell upon the unattentive ears of Rosanna, just arriving at the Castle from the cemetery, where she had freshly interred the remains of her grandfather. Distractedly she turned to him.

"What was that?"

"I saw Brooklyn and Sata land in the courtyard. How long have they been here?"

"About an hour. They arrived at the combat arena."

Lexington nodded. "Okay. I think I've got a line linked up to the Rokkan central computer, if you're interested. I can get you an in on all of their upcoming strategies."

Rosanna nodded numbly, turning back into the castle. Lexington roughly harrumphed, watching her enter. The footsteps behind him shook him out of his own funk and his attention toward his mate, Pontiac.

"She is mourning. Give her time."

Lexington looked at the blue gargess, the pain in his eyes obvious. "But that's the thing. She may not have any time left."

The sight of bones suddenly brought a start out of Rain. "What's that?"

"I don't know." Alexander motioned to Coyote to approach the bones with the light. As the light came upon the remains, their origins suddenly became crystal clear.

"These ... they're the mutants."

Slash turned and looked at the group. Alexander approached him. "I don't know if you remember this, Slash, but we brought you up to the castle because your parents had disappeared. We couldn't find them anywhere."

Slash was starting to comprehend. His face took on a sad hue as Alexander continued.

"We'd heard rumors of gunfire being heard down here, but we couldn't find any of the clan remaining. We'd assumed that they had left."

Alexander looked at the bones, whose owner had finally become clear by the clothes the skeleton wore.

Talon.

"I guess we were wrong."

Slash dropped to his knees, crumpled up in a mournful ball. His grief spilled over into a howl that echoed throughout the tunnels of the Labyrinth.

"Don't look now, folks, but we've got company!"

A rush of Rokkans, hidden in the shadows, ran into the tight corridor and descended on the search party. Unfortunately, much too late they realized they had walked directly into a trap.

Rosanna stood in the castle's Great Hall with Pontiac. The purple gargess' tone was frantic.

"That's what he said. You'll have to ask him yourself." Lexington entered behind his mate, holding a stack of fanfold printer paper. "Lex, tell her."

Lexington cleared his throat uneasily, then looked up at Rosanna. She stood before him, waiting impatiently.

"Well?"

He looked down. "There's no easy way to tell you this, Rosanna ... when they took you captive after that first attack, the Rokkans injected you with a retro-virus."

Rosanna's face softened into a milder panic. "Retro-virus?"

"It works on cellular structural breakdown. They injected it into your right ear." Lexington fought his emotions as he spoke further. "Its gestation period has passed, so it should be at full strength now. Bottom line ... if we don't get the virus out of your system in two weeks, it will kill you."

Now Rosanna's face was even more panicked. "How do we get it out?"

He could hold it back no longer. Out of the one eye he had left that was original, Lexington shed tears. "The only way to destroy the virus is to take away its nourishment. To do that ... you'll have to have almost the entire right half of your face ... removed."

Pontiac nearly had to hold up her hysterical mate. Rosanna, as well, for she knew now why it had hit him so hard. The parts that had to be removed could be replaced, but the only way it could be done would be through cyber-implants. She entered the embrace with Lex and Pontiac, now shedding tears of her own.

Brooklyn still held Ariana in his happy grasp, as she showed her parents the egg. Nudnik and Cadillac stood there, as well. Sata stood a distance off with Graeme.

"I didn't want you to worry about me or us. We were fine ... at least until this invasion."

"Yes, Rosanna told us all about what happened to Samson. Aw, honey I'm so sorry ..."

"Save it, dad. The only way I'll feel better is if we get him back." Ariana lifted the egg out of its nest, handing it to Brooklyn. "Want to hold your grandson?"

Brooklyn smiled with pride, taking the egg from his daughter. "It's awfully big, Ariana."

"It's about two months away from hatching. I'm not sure I want him to right now, but if he comes, we'll deal with having a hatchling in a war zone. It's all we can do."

Brooklyn smiled wider as he rocked the egg in his grip. It wiggled, though, and suddenly he lost it. The egg began to fall to the floor.

"HEY!!"

The egg continued its descent to the floor. A strange glow from Sata's left arm distracted everyone from the falling object, just enough that they didn't notice it being caught ... by Sata.

"Cool, Mom, how'd you do that?!"

"Graeme! That was my kid that Dad almost killed!"

"Sorry ... "

Sata set the egg down in the nest. Pulling up her sleeve, she revealed the device attached to her left forearm, which flashed for a short moment.

"I decided that it was time to enter the 21st century."

Brooklyn came over to her. "And I didn't want you to get that thing." He placed a soft kiss on her forehead.

Graeme was nearly bouncing off the walls. "Well don't keep us in suspense, what's it do?"

Sata smiled. "It focuses my chi, Graeme-chan. In any time of danger, it speeds up my reflexes and allows me to do anything very fast."

Ariana wrapped her arms around the egg again. "Well, thank God you had it, mom. That's all I have to say about it."

Alexander, however, had continued to look for the weapon stash. Quietly, he looked around the arena of the battle, searching every crevice of the tunnel for any sign of a hidden compartment. Frustrated by a visual search, he replaced his helmet and began looking on the infrared level.

Finally, he spotted it. A slim glow, spherical in shape, against a dark far wall of the living quarters. He quickly zipped over to open it.

Meanwhile, Rain and Slash kept slashing away at the Rokkan attackers. Coyote stood back of the attackers, hovering in the air and commencing a Hopi chant. As a wave of rancid sewer water crashed over the Rokkans, they started motioning to try and escape.

An escape halted by a large-caliber particle blast from Alexander which left two barbecued Rokkan corpses lying in the water.

"Guess what I found!" Alexander quickly tossed weapons over to the rest of the searchers, who put them to good use in finally pacifying the rest of the Rokkans. Those who were still alive cowered in fear for the searchers.

Alexander took that opportunity to grasp a male Rokkan's ears.

"Take this message to Demona ... tell her we won't lie down and die, just because she says to!" A swift kick to the tail sent that particular Rokkan on his way. The other searchers came back over to Alexander.

"All right!" Coyote's enthusiasm was not equally met by the rest.

"Let's go. God knows I'm tired of this sewer, I wasn't born to tromp through the bowels of the city."

The rest of the party nodded in agreement, following Coyote's light out of the tunnel and back to street level.