Gargoyle

Josie, Lizzie, Hope and a handful of other witches are sitting in a classroom holding hands, forming a large circle.

"Chain spells are about the transfer of energy from witch to witch. A disharmonious group causes an uneven flow which brings various problems with it..." Darius explains, walking around his students until a letter floats into the room and he snatches it out of the air.

"I wonder who's in trouble with the headmaster." A girl in the group says, everyone looking at Darius.

"Probably the people who started a brawl yesterday." Hope says, looking at the Saltzman twins.

"Let's see. Lizzie Saltzman, Josie Saltzman and baby makes three, off you go." Darius tells them, nodding to the door while Josie and Lizzie look at Hope surprised.

Minutes later the three girls are following Alaric through the artifact room as he's collecting books.

"I don't understand why we're being punished?" Lizzie says.

"Because you started a fight at a football charity game." Alaric tells her.

"But that isn't fair. I mean the abuse we have to endure everytime against the public school and the abuse from last game... This is all Josie's fault anyways. If she didn't use magic to throw the game..." Lizzie says.

"You still would have been punished. This way at least it's only community service and not jail time." Alaric tells his daughter.

"Nice going, throwing your sister under the bus. And why am I being punished anyways? I wasn't even at the game." Hope asks.

"You know what you did." Alaric warns her.

"Now, speaking of bus, it leaves in 10 minutes so go. All three of you and I expect you to work together today. Harmoniously and without drama." Alaric tells them and the Saltzman twins leave while Hope stays behind.

"This is pointless. I should be helping you research the knife." Hope tells him.

"The adults will handle it. Darius has a masters in literary science so I think we got it covered."

Alaric replies.

"That's not fair. You only play the adult card whenever you don't need something from me." Hope tells him annoyed.

"Speaking of needing something from you. I need you to be a normal kid today and to keep a dragon-sized secret OK? And tell Sosuke the same before you leave." Alaric tells her.

"Sosuke and I aren't on the best terms right now, so can I not..." She asks.

"No. Even more chance to be harmonious. Now go." Alaric tells her.

Hope leaves while slamming the door behind her and stomps to her room, to get ready for the community service and once she collects what she needs she heads across the hall, banging on Sosuke's door loudly.

"What's the ruckus?" He asks, opening the door and sees Hope standing in his doorframe in a bad mood.

"Dr. Saltzman wants us to keep our mouths shut about the dragon." She tells him and leaves, Sosuke looking after her with a confused look.

"Whatever." She hears him sigh and close the door again.

Half an hour after Hope's arrival at his door Sosuke leaves his room and heads to the garden, looking at a book with some herbs and their effects.

"Sosuke." Pedro, a young boy maybe 8 or 9 years old greets Sosuke while the other kids distance themselves from the herb field Pedro and his class was sitting at.

"Hey. You should hurry along with them." Sosuke tells him, nodding to the other young students who look at him fearfully.

"No. I was just getting the hang of this." Pedro says, shaking his head and looks down at his paper and the plants in the field.

"Suit yourself." Sosuke replies, looking down at the plants himself thoughtfully.

"Why don't the others like you?" Pedro asks curiously after a short while.

"Because I'm dangerous. And some of them can tell." Sosuke explains.

"But you're only human." Pedro says confused.

"That's why I'm dangerous. You know Pedro, us humans we get scared far easier than you witches or the wolves. And when someone is scared he often does stupid things." Sosuke tries to explain, sitting down next to the young boy.

"So you're stupid?" Pedro asks confused.

"Probably." Sosuke chuckles and ruffles Pedros hair before focusing on the plants again.

"That was nice." Alaric says surprised, walking into the garden while Pedro hurries over to the rest of the class at the teacher's request.

"I made you seem stupid too." Sosuke says mirthfully.

"Well there is no doubt that I can be. I never bothered to look into your past for example, but reading about what you remember, maybe I should have or at least offered you some help with it?" Alaric says.

"Who said I want to know about it?" Sosuke replies uninterested.

"Your choice. But I could use your advice." Alaric says.

"Regarding your daughters?" Sosuke asks, picking some herbs.

"No, regarding the dagger. You seem to know a lot by instinct and I'm currently stomped with the books, so..." Alaric says, holding out the dagger to Sosuke.

"I can tell you one thing." Sosuke says, taking the knife and looking it over once more.

"It may have the shape of a weapon, but that's not its purpose." Sosuke says.

"Why not?" Alaric asks.

"Unless the people in the past were stupid, you wouldn't make a dagger this unbalanced and hard to grip. The handle is not made for battle. So it must be like a ceremonial blade and that, dear headmaster, is not within my expertise, sorry." Sosuke tells him, offering back the knife.

"At least we agree on its purpose. I just can't find much on it. And what I found is in Gaulish." Alaric sighs.

"What's the hurry? I doubt the dragon can regenerate its head so can't we take our time to figure this out?" Sosuke asks.

"I don't know... I have this bad feeling." Alaric answers worried.

"Sorry I couldn't be more help." Sosuke tells him.

"Hope said you and her are not on the best of terms... Anything I should know about?" Alaric asks.

"Not really. Same old same old." Sosuke says annoyed, bringing his plants over to a table in the garden and sits down at it.

"Look I know you probably don't want to hesr this from me since you know how I feel about you liking Hope... But don't shut her out. You're the only one I have seen her open up to." Alaric tells him.

"I think you're talking to the wrong person. To her I'm nothing. Not even human." Sosuke says bitterly while cleaning up his harvest with a small knife.

"I'm sure that's not true." Alaric replies.

"It's what she said. And given her view on lying... I guess it has to be true." Sosuke replies, glancing at the teacher.

"Go on, look into your books. You don't have to stand here and listen to my sucky life." Sosuke tells Alaric.

"We should talk about this... But right now this dagger has to come first." Alaric replies and heads back into the school.

About an hour later Lizzie storms into Alaric's office, her front covered in a strawberry milkshake, getting Alaric's and Emma's attention.

"It's all your fault. I was doing community service when I was assaulted via milkshake by these neanderthals of mystic falls high. And this stupid girl Dana... I can't even talk about it. But now Hope and Josie are off being sisters in solidarity. But as I was walking home I realized. It's all your fault." Lizzie complains.

"How is this my fault?" Alaric asks, taken aback.

"Because if you had just been at the game instead if running around with Hope and Sosuke again, then everything would've gone differently. And it's not fair that she gets to know secrets your own daughters don't." Lizzie replies whining.

"She has a point." Emma, the guidance counselor, agrees.

"I am not going back there." Lizzie tells her father.

"That's OK. Why don't you... Help the primary school students in the garden." Alaric offers sympathetically.

"At least now you know why I'm so screwed up." Lizzie tells the guidance counselor before storming out and 10 minutes later she comes out into the garden.

"Oh great it's you. Just so you know my dad sent me here. No need to run off and report me for not being at community service.

"Hey, I didn't even know you had community service." Sosuke replies uninterested, knowing it's better not to engage with the Saltzman twins.

"I find that doubtful since Hope also had to go." Lizzie replies.

"I'm not surprised she did." Sosuke says offhandedly while mixing some herbs in a bowl.

"So you know... Then spill! What did she do to get shipped off to town?" Lizzie demands to know, hitting the table he is sitting at hard and makes some of his potion spill out.

"You already spilled enough. Now why don't you go, hate me from somewhere you can't destroy my work." He says with a sarcastic smile and leaves to get a towel.

"Ass." Lizzie yells after him and heads over to the class in the garden, lying down on a bench instead of helping however.

"Aren't you supposed to be helping us?" Pedro asks Lizzie after a while, coming over to her with a flowerpot.

"Take this as a life lesson Pedro. People disappoint." Lizzie tells him.

"That statue moved." Pedro says scared.

"Good one." Lizzie says sarcastically, sitting up and looks at a gargoyle statue behind her.

"It moved again." Pedro says, when Lizzie turns to face him again.

"We're being punked. The upper classes are using illusion spells obviously." Lizzie says and turns around again, not seeing the statue anymore, but instead sees Sosuke jump up and run in their direction.

"Lizzie." Pedro says scared, the Gargoyle landing in front of him and her.

Lizzie turns around and the Gargoyle snarls at them, before swiping his clawed stone hands at the two.

"Hurry inside and get Dr. Saltzman Pedro." Sosuke says, pulling Lizzie by her hand off the bench, with the Gargoyle smashing through the spot she was just sitting in.

"I need your help. You need to cast a spell to contain that thing." Sosuke says, grabbing Lizzie's hand and running away with her, the Gargoyle stomping after them with heavy movements.

"Fine." Lizzie says and collects energy from him through the hand she's holding before turning around and chants something while clasping her hands together.

"That doesn't seem to work." Sosuke says, getting in between Lizzie and the creature.

"Oh it did." She says.

"Yeah? Why is it still coming for you then?" Sosuke asks, grabbing onto the stone wrists of the Gargoyle as it tries to grab Lizzie.

"Run. I can't hold him for lo... at all, I can't hold him at all!" Sosuke says, getting pushed backwards while holding onto the wrists and his feet reach hers in moments.

"Get out of here." Sosuke says with a strained voice.

"Mhhhh." She murmurs and Sosuke glances behind him, seeing the tip of the creatures large wings stabbed into the sides of Lizzie's stomach.

"Fuck it!" Sosuke curses and lets go of the creatures hand, throwing himself at Lizzie and covers her with his body with closed eyes, waiting for the pain, until a few moments later of nothing happening safe for Lizzies muffled voice he hears the flapping of wings and looks behind him, only to see the Gargoyle gone.

"Well that's strange." Sosuke says, getting off her and offers her a hand before realizing that she's completely immobile.

"Oh, full on paralysis I see." Sosuke says and picks her up in his arms, carrying her into the school.

"What happened?" Alaric asks fearfully, seeing Lizzie unmoving after Pedro and his class told him what happened.

"Long story short, we have a gargoyle running around paralyzing people." Sosuke says.

"Although it didn't hurt me for whatever reason." Sosuke adds.

"Emma, gather all the students and hide in the library." Alaric tells the other teacher currently present.

"I'll bring Lizzie." Sosuke tells Alaric with a nod.

"I asked her to cast a containment spell and she did something. I'm just not sure what." Sosuke tells Alaric with Lizzie in his arms, stopping next to him and the headmaster brushes through his daughters hair saying "I'll draw it away for now. You go check if she succeeded in creating a barrier once you brought her to the library." Alaric says and Sosuke nods, bringing Lizzie into the library and leaving her in Emma Tig's care while he rushes out of the school and to the main gate off the campus.

"OK, So we have a barrier... Damn don't tell me it reaches into the woods." Sosuke says, fearing that Lizzie made the barrier around the school too small.

"I gotta check it out." Sosuke says.

"Sosuke! What's going on why is there a barrier?" Josie asks, both her and Hope arriving at the main gate, having gone back after Josie felt pain from her twin connection.

"Because we have a damn Gargoyle loose in here. Just stay out there and give me a bit to assess the situation." Sosuke tells them before running towards the woods.

The two girls only wait for 2 minutes before Josie gets hit by another wave of pain and siphons the barrier, breaking it.

In the meantime the Gargoyle stole the knife from Alaric, but didn't harm him and it's now looking for Lizzie after it ran into the barrier before Josie broke it.

"So far so good." Sosuke says, almost to his training spot and reaches it much to his surprise, before realizing that Josie must've broken the barrier afterall.

"damn." Sosuke curses, prying a piece of wood loose from an old tree and opens up his secret weapons cache.

He takes out a shotgun and some shotgun slugs intended for big game hunting.

"If that won't work then I don't know what will." He says, loading the gun up as he runs towards the school.

In the school in the meantime Josie and Hope have come across Alaric and they head to the library, where everyone else is hidden after the Saltzman's armed themselves with axes which were hanging on a wall as decoration.

When they get to the Library they see the room empty.

"Emma?" Alaric asks loudly and the teacher reveals hers and the other students presence, dropping her illusion spell, hidden at a wall behind a room separator.

She quickly pulls the separator back in place when the Gargoyle enters the room roaring at the three newcomers.

It spreads its wings in a show of power and flies towards Hope, swiping at her with Hope dropping to the floor to dodge the attack.

Alaric panics and jumps in front of the Gargoyle who was attempting to stab Hope with the dagger, only for it to stop and stare at Alaric wondrously.

"Dad!" Josie shouts in fear and Sosuke hears this as he's running past a window of the library.

"I hope he won't make me pay." Sosuke mumbles, before shooting through the window aimed at the roof and jumps in afterwards, using the pump action to load up the next bullet and the creature shifts its attention towards him.

"This time you're not stopping me." Sosuke says, raising the shotgun and shoots, punching a hole in the middle of the creatures chest and immediately afterwards fires another round which turns its head to pebbles which scatter around the room.

The rest of the Gargoyle freezes and falls over, Alaric pulling the downed Hope just out of the way before the statue would come down on her legs.

"You could have just listened and stayed outside, you know." Sosuke tells them, putting the weapon on his back with its leather strap.

"Everyone alright?" Alaric asks and Emma pushes aside the separator, nodding positive while Alaric can also see Lizzie moving again.

"I think you gotta hold another speech." Sosuke tells the headmaster, pulling the dagger out of the rubble which formerly was the Gargoyle.

"Yeah. You're right." Alaric agrees and accepts the knife, before pulling him in close and threateningly whispers "And we need to talk about where you got a shotgun."

"Whatever." Sosuke replies rolling his eyes and leaves the library by hopping out of the destroyed window.

"How could you jump in front of her like that. You could gave died dad." Josie says disappointed in her father.

"Honey, I knew it wouldn't hurt me because my research said so." Alaric answers.

|Later that evening|

Alaric, Hope and Sosuke are gathered in the headmasters office, the young boy leaning against a wall next to the door while Alaric is standing behind his desk and Hope is sitting in front of it.

"How did you know it wouldn't hurt you?" Hope asks.

"Because, Gargoyle's are protectors. Folklore tells of a Gargoyle in France whose villagers revered a powerful relict, a knife." Alaric says.

"Our knife?" Hope asks surprised.

"As the story goes the Gargoyle loved humans so much he swore to never harm them and instead fight evil on their behalf." Alaric informs her.

"Me being the evil one in this scenario. Josie, Lizzie..." Hope catches on.

"In its mind, yes. It didn't harm Sosuke or me before either so I was pretty sure it saw us as the ones in need of protection." Alaric explains.

"I'm not sure that knowing that will make them feel any better." Hope says.

"Now to you. Where did that shotgun come from?" Alaric asks.

"I have a weapons cache on the outside of the school grounds no one knows about." Sosuke answers.

"Are you serious? And here I thought you showing me your file was you making progress." Alaric yells.

"i never really used it for what it's worth. It's just stuff I knew I needed in the past and wanted to be prepared in case I had to leave the school." Sosuke tells him.

"How long did you have it?" Alaric asks.

"2 years." Sosuke replies.

"Do you know what could have happened if any of the students came across it?" Alaric says.

"Yes, which is why I didn't keep any of it in my room." Sosuke answers.

"This discussion is not over and your cache is going to be dissolved you understand? Put it in the armory for now. I need to talk with my girls." Alaric says sternly.

"Dr. Saltzman, before you go. One more thing. You're always telling us that we need to work together, put our own feelings aside for the good of the school, the community. And I know I haven't always listened to you but I'm starting to think it's actually pretty good advice, so maybe you should take it. Because if you want for me and the twins to get along, for them to be happy and the school to be safe... Then these secrets are gonna tear us all apart." Hope tells him and he nods in understanding.

"Tell everyone to meet up in the entrance hall." Alaric tells his students and leaves ahead of them.

"I'll go right. You go left." Sosuke tells Hope when the two walked to the hallway leading to the dorm rooms in silence.

"Wait, before that, why did you make this weapons cache?" Hope asks.

"Because I don't have claws or magic to rely on. This is kind of my version of dark magic I guess." Sosuke tells her and splits up, informing everyone to gather.

"If you asked me a week ago I would have told you I know the difference between myth and fact and that the supernatural only contains the species under this roof. That folklore and fairytales are all just stories. But I can no longer claim this to be true. For just a few days ago we were confronted by the existence of a dragon. And today our campus was terrorized by a Gargoyle come to life. Some of us were forced to fight and we won, this time. They were drawn here by a knife after it went missing earlier this week. And for whatever reason. These creatures consider us to be their enemy. We are the villains to them because we won't give them what they want. And we don't even know why they want it. But we're going to find out. I can't say what their true intentions are and I don't know if there will be more attacks. That's why I'm telling you all this. To warn you and to ask you to look out for each other. Because we're more than just a school. We're family and we'll stand together. We'll fight together and we'll win or loose together no matter what comes next." Alaric announces to the students who are all whispering amongst themselves after hearing about this.

After his speech is done Sosuke is the first to leave, walking across the room to the doors and Lizzie quickly follows after him, much to everyone's surprise.

"Hey, wait." Lizzie says loudly once they are in the hallway and he's walking ahead of her.

"What? I'm still not gonna tell you what Hope did to get in trouble." He tells her annoyed and stops, turning around to her with his hands in his hoodie.

"Thank you for protecting me." She says hugging him strongly and gives his cheek a kiss.

"Sure." He replies taken aback and continues on his way awkwardly once she releases her hug.

While he's in the woods clearing out his cache Sosuke hears steps from behind him and sees Landon and Rafael back at the school.

"Well you came back quick." Sosuke remarks, slinging the weapons packed in a dufflebag over his shoulder.

"Long story." Rafael replies.

"I'm Rafael by the way, we haven't formally been introduced yet. But thank you for helping me and Landon." Rafael says, holding out a hand.

"Yeah. We'll see if it was help. This place is changing and I'm afraid, not for the better." Sosuke says accepting the handshake.

"So, you especially need to be careful." Souke tells Landon, patting his shoulder before walking past them.

"Hey, you're human right? What did you do to get accepted here?" Landon asks hopeful.

"I have never been accepted, so you'll have to figure it out on your own." Sosuke replies with a shrug as he walks away.

When he reaches his room's door is about to open is but turns around and knocks on Hope's door instead.

A few seconds later the girl opens the door, wearing only a shirt and shorts.

"What?" She asks.

"I just wanted to give you a heads-up. Landon and Rafael are back." Sosuke tells her.

"Why?" She asks with mixed feelings.

"I don't know. I just saw them in the woods and thought you deserved to know." Sosuke replies shrugging and moves over to his door, unlocking it.

"Thanks." She says surprisingly soft for her usual attitude towards him and he turns around to look at her before entering his room but her door is already 80% closed.