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All the characters appearing in Gargoyles and Gargoyles: The Goliath Chronicles are copyright Buena Vista Television/The Walt Disney Company. No infringement of these copyrights is intended, and is not authorized by the copyright holder. All original characters are the property of AmberAll the characters appearing in Gargoyles and Gargoyles: The Goliath Chronicles are copyright Buena Vista Television/The Walt Disney Company. No infringement of these copyrights is intended, and is not authorized by the copyright holder. All original characters are the property of
Amber a.k.a. Jubilee
Somewhere Unknown...
She flew. She flew so far and so fast that her feathers seemed to burn with every flap, every stroke of hollow bone, muscle and feather. The storm was nearing, swallowing the land she once knew as her home. And she was just ahead of it, flying onward. She must have been
surpassing speeds of 100 m.p.h., and it showed at her strained figure. The storm was gaining, leaving nothing behind but nothingness, a world void of everything that once made it a world. A dark, deep oblivion that ran for centuries, destroying everything it passed over. She was determined not to be one of it’s claims. A brightness ahead, beaming with all the possible colors of creation, twirled in an inward spiral to a fixed point of white light. She soared in this direction, on instinct. This was the only way. Like a moth to a light, she flew to it. She was engulfed, her
very being on fire with the colors that supposed all knowledge. A bright flash of swirling colors, and all was blackened to ash, leaving nothing just like the storm she had fled from.
12:00 A.M. Manhattan-Central Park
Elisa Maza walked out of Central Park after another most pleasant meeting with Goliath. She had been on her lunch break, and to save time they had agreed to meet there, by the fountain. God knows how hard it was lately, with all the crime rising and no days off in sight. She sighed
wistfully, knowing full well that if she asked Captain Chavez, she would most likely get what she desperately needed. But she felt as she lounged about, someone would get hurt just because she wasn’t there. She was morally stranded. Hell, it was her job, but sometimes she just wanted to
screw it all and just kick back, see Goliath-and the clan-more.
Glancing at the starry sky, a light drizzle began to fall. Shielding herself with her right hand, she stopped and looked on at the moon for a moment. Something didn’t seem right tonight, she thought, as she gazed at the pearly orb in the sky. She shook her head to rid herself of that
thought, and moved on to her Fairlane, which was parked not too far away.
12:03 A.M. Manhatten-Central Park
The portal opened, throwing out the bright blue bird that slightly resembled a falcon. She flapped wildly, trying to regain her balance. Twisting, her wings flailing about her, and she landed in an unsightly posture onto the dew soaked grass. The swirling portal vanished,
corrupting inward to the bright light, leaving the only survivor of an entire world. She hopped onto her feet, surveying the area, waiting for her head to stop reeling. She heard footsteps, so her study of this new place was abruptly cut short. With all her strength she could muster, she hid in
a nearby bush that looked alien to her. Small amber eyes peered at the approaching creature, curiosity as well as fear building. She almost gasped at what she saw. It was a tall thing, resembling a fey slightly, but with small, more rounded ears, and less jagged features. She instantly realized what she was looking at was the mythical human. Fey in her land used to speak of them, and she had listened, carried away in their stories, half-believing them. Some were just plain improbable, but some gave her hope of a world existing well beyond her own, a second place where life was possible. This made those stories true to her, giving them new meaning and light, when she saw this creature called the human. The Fey also had recollected that humans were greedy, self-sufficient, destructible creatures. Others would say they were good and bad, but all in all she had no place to put anybody until she met them. She had always believed
strongly in this, it was her nature.
Studying the human, she concluded it was female. The creature walked past her and she followed, hopping along the ground for all the world like one of New York’s finest pigeons. Sometimes she would stop to admire the tall structures about her that reached to the heavens,
looking like the Guardian’s Towers of her own world, which was now gone. They stood out in amazing contrast to the dark sky, the millions of lights illuminating from them intermingling with the stars and moon. It was beautiful to her, yet she kept her eyes on the human. She suddenly got
the notion that if she was to fit in here, she would need to change form. The only way to do this was to shift, and she could only shift into something she had seen. No imaginary creatures, such
as the human. But here she was, following one. Yes, she could be her. She stopped suddenly, and stared at the retreating figure of the human. She concentrated, putting all her effort into shifting. Her wings grew into arms, beak into a face, which sprouted hair. Short legs with talons
into long ones with toes.
Long, sable hair, a red bomber jacket with a black T-shirt underneath, jeans and boots.
The duplicate of Elisa Maza stood there and smiled, continuing after the original.
7:00 P.M.-Erie Building-The next day
Elisa Maza yawned. It had been a hard day. She had finally gotten her day off as she requested from the Captain, fighting her moral demons. She had to take a rest, continuing on was just so hard it almost made her want to collapse. She had bags under her chocolate brown eyes, and her visible weariness didn’t end there. Her very steps were sluggish, and the Captain had seen this and had practically demanded Elisa have a day off. Elisa had almost argued, but why waste much needed energy on someone who had way too much? It ended there.
Walking out of the elevator onto the castle grounds at the very top of the tall skyscraper, Elisa saw a familiar dog-like figure rush up to her and almost knock her over, barking hysterically. Elisa smiled at Bronx’s antics, too tired to laugh. Hudson soon appeared thereafter, following to see what the retreating Bronx was making such a fuss about.
“Hello Lass!” He greeted enthusiastically.
Elisa continued to smile, but even that small action was wearing thin. “Hey Hudson.”
Hudson immediately noticed something was wrong, but the bags under her eyes also aided this conclusion. “What’s wrong with ye, Lass?” He questioned the detective, concerned.
“Just tired, I guess.” Elisa seeped. “I need to speak to Goliath, he around?” She momentarily turned her attention on Bronx, who was affectionately nudging her left hand.
“Alas, no. He and Angela just left on patrol. If ye were a second before...” Hudson trailed off as he watched Elisa pet Bronx on the head, while she nodded that she understood and he needed not to explain any further.
“Well, I should be back later. If he gets back, tell him I stopped by. Thanks Hudson.”
She turned and left abruptly, leaving an old gargoyle not quite sure what just happened, and a gar-dog looking on at her departure with curious eyes.
7:15 P.M.-Erie Building
The duplicate of Elisa Maza had studied the elevator doors quite curiously, unsure of how this all worked. She had seen her twin press a button, the doors had closed, and when they opened again some time later, (again when someone pressed a button) the small room inside was
empty of anyone, and the man who had pressed the button had entered and disappeared also. This had gone on for a few minutes, when the doors once opened again, only no one had pressed the button, and her twin had walked out, hands in her pockets, head lowered. She would have been spotted if the real Elisa hadn’t been so intent on looking at her feet as she exited the premises. All day the fake Elisa had wondered about the city, getting used to the sights and smells. It was intoxicating to her. People would look at her, but most ignored her. In the late afternoon she had returned to her twin’s living quarters and waited outside, hiding across the street in an alley. She had followed her twin as a pigeon in her strange contraption that crowded the city, polluting the air.
She had never entered one of the towers until now, and at first she was a bit intimidated. People entered and exited this tall structure without an upward glance. She, however, made many upward glances before swallowing her fear inside and nearly charged in, getting several scornful
looks at the bystanders. Now, here she was, studying this thing. Several people entered, and she followed them in, watching as they pressed the buttons for their floors. They gave her sidelong looks, wondering why she hadn’t pressed for a floor, but shrugged it off as they had already done it. One by one they got off, and she was tempted to follow, but was curious as the elevator kept rising. Finally, it stopped at the building’s top floor, and the last man got off. She hesitated.
A man with blonde hair and glasses saw her in the elevator. “Ms. Maza, are you going to ride the elevator or get off?” Owen Burnett inquired.
She blinked. This was the first time anyone had addressed her. Not that she didn’t know the language. She could learn quickly, and her day on the town had made her pick up a lot, but not all of it. “Yes.” The most basic reply. She stepped into a large room.
Owen sighed. Elisa would always be a puzzle to him, even as Puck, the trickster himself. “Ms. Maza, did you forget your pass?” He inquired when she made no move to do anything.
She nodded blankly, and again repeated her previous answer, not sure what a ‘pass’ was, but thinking she would need it. “Yes.”
Owen shook his head and almost tsked her. He motioned her to another elevator, separate from the other public one. He punched in a code on a device on the wall, and the double doors slid open. He turned to her. “In the future I suggest you remember your pass, or I might not be so generous.” He turned and abruptly left the room.
She looked at the new ‘elevator’, now knowing what it was called. She took a step forward, throwing a quizzical look at the thing by the elevator that had made it open up. Once inside, she looked at two buttons. One showed an arrow going up, another down. She, by chance, pressed the up arrow. The doors slid shut, and once again she got that strange feeling of moving upward, so she knew that she had picked the right one. The doors opened again, showing a staircase that spiraled upwards. She knew what stairs were, those were easy. She climbed these in no time, and soon found herself looking out an open door, with stone parapets and flooring showing. These reminded her so of her own world, the structure was so familiar. She was at once flooded by relief, almost believing the ‘magical elevators’ had somehow taken her back to her world, no longer a vast oblivion because of their enchantment. But this was terminated when
she could lean over the battlements and see the city below her. Somehow she was on a castle of some sort on top of one of these tall towers. There was a sound behind her, and she whirled.
“Elisa!” Came a all-too-happy voice.
She saw a tall, lavender gargoyle with long sable hair and a slight grin. Before she knew what was happening, she was in his embrace, and his wings were wrapped around her tightly. Three things flew through her mind then. One, why he was holding her like this, two, why he
called her Elisa...was that the human’s name? And three, why hadn’t she seen gargoyles before in this world? She had had them in her own, but why hadn’t she seen them on the streets? Why were they all alone on the top of this building? It was mind boggling.
She suddenly realized the gargoyle had pulled her back to look at her face.
“Elisa, what’s wrong?” He asked, worried.
She was confused, but quickly picked up the language. “I’m fine.” She lied. She would have to figure this all out soon. She was getting a throbbing in her head that hurt.
“You do not look right. Are you sure?” He protested.
“Yes.” She pulled away, uncomfortable to get this close to a gargoyle. Who did he think he was anyway?
There was a sudden noise in the archway behind them. Both turned to look. Goliath’s jaw dropped, the copy of Elisa gasped. And the real Elisa? She stood there, transifixed at the exact duplicate of herself who she had caught in Goliath’s arms...
More later, as the Saga continues...please rate the story. Thanks!
Amber
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