Change of Face - part 3
The Change
by Cat
CatK@buffymail.com
OR
Kirk_cathy@hotmail.com
Disclaimer: Gargoyles. Don't own'em. Everything not from Gargoyles. I own. Please ask
before using. Before reading this, it's best to read Change of Face parts 1 & 2. On with
the show...
**********
"Now!"
**********
The hall lights went out, to be replaced by red flashing emergency lights, a loud siren's wail filled the building.
"What's going on?" I could barely hear Brooklyn over the din.
"I think we've been noticed!" I replied, just as a squad of security forces entered our hallway. At the head of the group stood Sevarius, brandishing his tranq gun.
"I want them alive!" he shouted to the security forces. Brooklyn, however, wasn't giving up without a fight. As the first security
goon reached us, Brooklyn spread his wings, ripping the trenchcoat to shreds, and knocking the soldier off his feet.
Next, a pair of soldiers rushed Brooklyn at once. He grabbed them
both in mid run by their shirt collars, thumping their heads
together, thereby rendering them unconscious. He then launched them back at their comrades, knocking over the entire security squad.
Sevarius, meanwhile, had slunk closer and drawn his tranq gun. He
aimed at Brooklyn's back and pulled the trigger.
"Get down!" Screaming I leapt into Brooklyn. The world seemed to slow down as I rammed into his back with enough force to knock us both
down. I saw the dart hit me in the side, and red spears of pain immediately leapt across my vision. Reality came back into focus,
and at a more normal speed. I heard Sevarius laughing.
"You fool! That wasn't a tranquillizer, it was..." His words were
cut off as my blood roared in my ears.
I screamed, and my world was plunged into darkness.
**********
A UNIVERSAL VIEW
Brooklyn's attention was riveted upon the soldiers, so he didn't
notice Sevarius sneaking up on him. He heard a shout of "Get down!" and was ploughed into the floor as Catherine hit him dead in the
back.
The wind was knocked from him, and for a moment, he almost blacked
out. He caught his breath and heard Sevarius say something about a "genetic poison".
Then Catherine screamed and fell. He caught her easily. Looking around he spotted the window close by, he dove for it. Wrapping his wings around Catherine to protect her from flying glass, he smashed through the window, spread his wings, caught a current, and glided off.
**********
Brooklyn headed straight to the castle perched atop the Eyrie
Building. Catherine hung unconscious in his arms, her face a mask of pain. He flew high and fast, hoping against hope that maybe
Xanatos's doctors could fix whatever Sevarius had done to her. Twice
he almost dropped Catherine as she struggled against the internal
pain.
He arrived at the castle, only to be greeted by a group of gargoyles with questions, questions he didn't have time to answer.
"Lex!" he yelled to a small olive coloured gargoyle with wings
between his arms and legs. "Go get the doctors! She's hurt!" Carefully, he lowered Catherine to the ground, where she continued to convulse in pain, oblivious to her strange observers.
"Who is she Brooklyn?" Angela, a purple female, asked.
"She's a friend. She helped me escape from Sevarius." he replied, looking mournful. "Sevarius tried to shoot me with something, but she jumped in the way first."
"Sevarius? I thought he was dead." Angela replied.
Goliath, the largest and the leader of the gargoyles chose that
moment to enter the conversation. "It appears we were wrong in that assumption." Turning to Brooklyn he placed a comforting hand on his shoulder, "Don't worry, I'm sure Xanatos's doctors will do everything in their power to save her."
Lex came scrambling around the corner, running so fast he nearly collided with Bronx, the blue gargoyle guard dog. "The doctors are coming!" he panted, nearly out of breath.
Shortly thereafter, the Eyrie building medical staff came zipping around the corner, stretcher in tow.
**********
Two hours later, the doctors had finished their examination of Catherine, and had gathered the gargoyles in the library to reveal their findings.
Dr. McCoy looked at the concerned faces surrounding him and
swallowed nervously. "It appears that the tranquillizer dart was filled with a kind of genetic poison. Specifically, it was meant to target a gargoyle's system, and to destroy it from the inside out.
We believe it was derived from the blood samples Sevarius took of Brooklyn while he held him captive."
Brooklyn broke in, "If it was meant for gargoyles, then what's wrong with Catherine?"
"Well, frankly, um...we have no idea." The doctor replied in a meek tone.
"What?!" Brooklyn roared. "What do you mean you have no idea?!"
"T..technically it shouldn't have affected her at all. It most certainly should not have had this kind of effect on her." he looked down at his notes.
"What do you mean, 'this kind of effect'?" Goliath asked.
"Well, um, it seems to be rearranging some of her internal organs,
and well, umm..." The doctor seemed at a loss for words.
"Spit it out lad." Hudson, an elderly brown gargoyle, urged him.
"Well," he pulled out an x-ray taken earlier, "As you can see here,
it appears to be changing her." He pulled out another, more recent
x-ray. "It appears that she is developing wings, and a tail, see
here, and here." He pointed to various places on the x-ray.
"My colleagues and I believe she is changing into something similar
to the mutates." The mutates were a group of Sevarius's earlier experiments. Humans who had been changed into half person, half felines with wings.
The doctor continued. "Apparently there was enough gargoyle DNA in
the poison that, somehow, her DNA began absorbing it. Now, this
poison also has some of the same properties as the mutagen Sevarius used on the mutates, some type of bonding properties. From the test results, it appears that she may turn into something part gargoyle
and part mutate. I'm afraid we can't find a way to stop or slow the
transformation."
"Ye said 'may' lad. What did ye mean?" Hudson asked.
"I mean she may change, or she may not survive the night." A grim silence settled over the gargoyles.
Dr. McCoy looked down at his notes and continued through the
silence. "Unfortunately, these changes appear to be happening faster than our records indicate they should. Any painkillers we give her just don't have time to take effect before being flushed out of
her system. I'm sorry."
The gargoyles stood in silence. Abruptly Brooklyn turned and leapt
of the castle, into the night.
"Brooklyn!" Lex made to go after him, but Angela held him back.
"No Lex, let me go." she said softly.
"Alright." Angela glided off after Brooklyn.
**********
Brooklyn came to a rest atop one of the many apartment buildings in
New York. He sat at the edge of the building, hanging his feet over the side. He put his head in his hands and just sat there, thinking.
"Brooklyn!" Angela came gliding towards him. He didn't even bother
to look up. "Brooklyn?" Angela landed next to him, calling is name again in hopes of a response. Getting none, she simply sat down next to Brooklyn and waited.
She didn't have long to wait. "It's all my fault." Brooklyn said softly. "She wouldn't have been shot if it weren't for me." he
looked over to Angela. "She's going to die and it's all my fault."
"Brooklyn!" Angela said in a firm tone. "It's not your fault, and she's not going to die."
Brooklyn looked towards the stars, as if in search of an answer, a forlorn expression on his beak. "But the doctor said--"
"The doctor said," Angela interrupted, "that she ~might~ die.
However, don't you think that if she wakes up, she'd want to see a familiar face? ~When~ she wakes up, it's going to be in a strange place, with strange people, you really should be there..." Angela
trailed off quietly, as Brooklyn's attitude changed, from one of
self-pity to one of resolve.
"You're right," he stated. Then he grinned at her, "Thanks Angie."
He laughed and took off.
Angela yelled after his retreating form, "Don't call me Angie!"
**********
WHERE DREAMS RESIDE
I was swimming in a river of pain. The shores were just out of
reach, and with them, relief from the pain. Sevarius stood on the shore, watching me struggle, laughing.
The winged tiger flew by. "Beware, beware". Brooklyn flew by, and away, "Thank you". A shadow fell over me, growing, looming,
suffocating me. The one who watches. He laughed, a horrible, deep, hate filled laugh. A laugh which took shape and reached out,
intent on my destruction.
**********
He raged in his world of monitors, screaming obscenities at his view
of the outside world.
"Blast it! He missed! That incomprehensible idiot! He came with within five feet of the gargoyle and he missed!"
A hand lashed out, destroying a monitor in a shower of sparks. The
man looked down at the destruction he had wrought, a smile slowly overtaking, then replacing, the anger.
"Ah, well, perhaps something can be salvaged after all. We'll see
how well humans can survive a poison made to turn a gargoyle to dust. Yes, perhaps something can be salvaged after all."
He sat back down to his monitors, a grin on his face, not even
noticing when someone came and replaced the smashed monitor.
**********
I awoke only to find more pain. I ached all over, from the top of my head, to the tip of my tail.
~Tail?~ I looked down, carefully, mindful of the pain. Sure enough
I seemed to be sporting a gray furry tail. My head slammed back into my pillow, alerting a nurse to my state of consciousness.
I closed my eyes and blocked off my mind to the impossibility before me. ~I don't have a tail. I don't have a tail.~ Obviously the pain
I was in was making me hallucinate. ~I don't have a tail.~ It
became a litany in my mind. A life line which I held onto to stay
sane.
I heard voices, drawing nearer, still I refused to open my eyes. I heard shuffling feet as someone walked over to the side of my bed, still me eyes stayed closed.
"Hey," it was Brooklyn. "The doctors say you're awake. I was wondering if you felt better?" I didn't answer. I heard him begin to fidget nervously, what's more, I swore I could ~smell~ his nervousness.
"Catherine, please open your eyes." I didn't want to. My mind insisted that if I did, I'd be sorry, but I couldn't ignore his pleading tone. Slowly, carefully, staring straight ahead into space,
I opened my eyes. I stared at the ceiling for a few minutes before letting my eyes wander over to Brooklyn, there they found his look of concern, guilt, and relief that I was alright.
"Are you alright?" he repeated.
"I...I don't know." I responded. "My head hurts like the dickens,
and I think I'm seeing things."
"The doctors say the pain should stop soon. Wait, seeing things, what kind of things?" he asked.
"When I opened my eyes the first time, I could've sworn I had a
tail."
He looked past me for a moment, his eyes searching. He must have
found what he was searching for, for he seemed to come to a decision.
He reached down to me. "Come on," he said. "I need to show you something."
Carefully I took his arm and attempted to stand up, the pain in my
head already receding to bearable levels. I got up and took a few steps. He lead me over to a full length mirror and positioned me in front of it.
"Look." It was more a command than a request, involuntarily I
looked. Looking back at me was a strange creature. Built like a person, or gargoyle, but with a cat's features. Gray fur covered my entire body, long black hair cascaded down my back. I found I had
huge wings, built like Brooklyn's, with the three 'fingers' at the
top. A long gray tail, that was indeed not an illusion, but was
quite attached to me. My hands still had five fingers, but now
seemed to house retractable claws. The most startling thing was my eyes, no longer a dull brown, but a vivid green, and with iris's like
a cats. In addition, a streak of pure white hair ran through the rest of my black mane.
"Oh my..." I whispered. I began to hyperventilate. I couldn't seem
to get enough air. The room began a wild dance around my head, and darkness crept at the edges of my vision.
**********
"Doctor!" Brooklyn yelled. "Something's wrong!"
Dr. Woo, the petite Chinese doctor came running. "Oh dear, she's
going into shock. Quickly, place her back in bed."
While Brooklyn placed Catherine back in bed, Dr. Woo prepared a sedative, which she then administered to Catherine in order to calm
her down.
"Try talking to her, she needs to calm down." Dr. Woo advised
Brooklyn.
**********
A soft voice penetrated through my thick layers of panic.
"Shh....everything will be alright. It's not so bad, being a
gargoyle..."
Is that what I was now? A gargoyle?
Gradually my breathing returned to normal, the panic receded, leaving
only a dull ache of pain.
"Brooklyn?" I whispered.
"Yes?" he replied, concern colouring his words.
"Will," I pause for a moment, thinking. Finally, "will you help me
be a gargoyle?"
"Definitely." I heard his response before the darkness claimed me
once again.
**********
Catherine slept away the night, unaware of things which were lurking just around the corner.
**********
A few minutes before dawn, I awoke, feeling somewhat better, although not quiet like my old self.
Brooklyn was still there, watching over me. I smiled a bit.
"You still here?" I asked in a small voice.
"Yeah," he answered, "But I gotta leave now, I don't think the
octors would appreciate having to walk around me all day." he grinned at me.
"Have a good sleep." I told him as he got up to leave.
He stopped and looked at me, "Just rest," he told me, and left the room.
The sun rose, and I fell into a deep sleep
**********
WHERE DREAMS RESIDE
There were colours, but this time they seemed brighter, friendlier.
As I watched they took shape, forming a brightly lit meadow on a
spring day. A breeze blew by, carrying the scent of wild flowers.
I heard a voice.
"Well, well. Looks like old doc S is up to the same old tricks."
A small man appeared in front of me, floating in mid air. He was dressed in a medieval garment of purple and red, he sat there suspended. His white hair blowing in the breeze, his ears were long and pointed, but for some reason I felt this was the most natural thing
in the world.
"Who are you?" my voice echoed oddly through the surrounding area. "Where are we?"
"Where are we?" he acted shocked. "Why we're anywhere you want to
be. This is where dreams are made, the scenery is completely up to you." He began floating around me in a circle, examining me from all sides. "As for me, why I'm just a concerned Child of Oberon."
He floated up into the sky, and hovered there. "Are you sure this is the right one?" he seemed to be talking to thin air.
"We..."
"...are..."
"...sure."
Three voices answered one after the other. Three women appeared each identical, save for hair colour. Each had a different hair colour,
one black, one blond, and one pure white. They hovered in the air, seeming mysterious and foreign.
"She has a destiny,"
"To travel to other places,"
"To help those in need."
"Weelllll..... I dunno..." The first elf, the male, said. "She
doesn't seem that important to me." he gave me a wink.
"She will live forever,"
"She will heal the injured,"
"She will be a great hero."
"Well," he smiled at me again. "If you say so. ~I~ think she'll need
a little help." the male elf disappeared in a green flash, leaving me alone with these weird sisters.
"You will have magic,"
"You will have knowledge,"
"You will have a life long friend."
The original elf popped back into existence. "In due time girls, for now," he looked at me, "WAKE UP!!"
**********
To Be Concluded...
**********
Stay tuned for the forth chapter Loose Ends, coming soon.
Praise? Flames? Sings of Life? email me at CatK@buffymail.com
OR kirk_cathy@hotmail.com
Please?