Brooklyn's gettin' big! Big enough to get that second boon, for sure! Now Lexington's been added as a votable category, so let's get 'em both swole, one way or another, heheh.

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VOTING/DONATIONS CLOSED

STAY TUNED FOR CHAPTER 5!

Art by Yours Truly
Story by  renard_defleureax
Nero belongs to  winterwight

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Months after the Quarrymen’s attack on Castle Wyvern, the vaunted hero of the hour, Clan Leader Brooklyn, had curiously slipped out of the public eye. It’s not that people had stopped caring about gargoyles, it’s just that Brooklyn had practically disappeared. When dawn came, he no longer lined the parapets of the castle with his clan, and not even Xanatos was telling much. Mostly because, for the first time in a very long time, he had no idea what the Manhattan Clan were up to. The various members of the clan had been taken up with their own projects, and Brooklyn’s chosen venture was, apparently, sampling every recipe Nawlins had to offer.

Simply put, the clan leader’s formerly rippling, musclebound body had been destroyed, buried under nearly three hundred pounds of Southern, deep-fried fat. He just couldn’t tear himself away from Nawlins’ cooking. That’s not to say he was a total blob; strong muscles still kept him mobile and moving somewhere underneath his brick-red hide, but it was a task to find evidence of them.

That was starting to bother him, though. Brooklyn didn’t want to stop eating Nawlins’ cooking, but on the other hand, he should probably start working out again. He winced slightly as he lumbered up to Castle Wyvern’s Great Hall, watching his thick, cauldron-like belly bounce. He winced again as he settled into his seat, and felt how much his hips were wedged into the stone chair.

“This… isn’t what I had in mind,” he grumbled.

“As opposed to what? Didn’t you want to be the big man?” Puck’s voice wafted into the Great Hall, and immediately, the fae was at the gargoyle’s side.

Brooklyn frowned, and waved Puck away. “This isn’t the right type of big, and you know it,” he said, taking a handful of his belly fat and watching it wobble.

“But aren’t things going the way you wanted? Isn’t your clan and the press outside enamored with you?”

Brooklyn sighed; Puck wasn’t incorrect. No one had said an unkind word to him, not even a joke about his expanding size. As far as he knew, he still had the clan’s respect, but it still felt wrong. “Wouldn’t they respect me more if I was more… y’know, like Goliath?”

“How do you mean?”

Brooklyn rolled his hand. “You know… big like him. I want to be towering over everyone, that sort of thing.”

There was a glimmer in Puck’s eye. “And is that what you want, oh great clan leader?”

“Well… I wouldn’t mind it…”

“Then your wish is my command!

You say you want to be a greater tower,
For you think it will augment your power
But you forget that towers are tall, not wide,
Keen to ducking down when they move inside
So now your stature will grow more prolific
Do not blame me if you weren’t specific!”

“Wait, what?” Brooklyn asked, before he felt a sharp, groan-inducing pain hit him in his very bones. He felt like he was being tugged on from all ends, and soon, his head was slowly pressing further up the back of the chair. The hefty gargoyle lost his balance, and his chair tumbled over backwards. Staggering back up, Brooklyn looked over his body; he still seemed the same. His ponderous belly was still there, and he was still soft all around. And then he noticed the ground was farther away than it used to be.

“Oh, for the love of-- this isn’t what I meant, Puck!” He shouted, and the fae’s uproarious laughter was the only response as he faded away, leaving Brooklyn alone and ten inches taller.

“Mr. Clan Leader?” a new voice drawled.

Brooklyn turned to face Nero, another recent acquisition to the clan. Unlike the laid-back Mar or the boisterous Nawlins, Nero was small and thin, almost snake-like. Oddly enough for a gargoyle, he dressed in human fashions, with a tailored jacket and tie wrapped around his lithe torso.

Nero stroked at his thin beard, frowning slightly. “We should think of a better address for our leader.”

Brooklyn shrugged. “It wasn’t too long ago most of us didn’t have names.”

“Well, a discussion for another time… the little green one, Lexington, wanted to talk to you… apparently he’s found something.”

“Isn’t he taller than you by an inch?”

It was Nero’s turn to shrug. “He’s still little. At least, in comparison to you… but then, we’re all little compared to you, Clan Leader.”

Brooklyn frowned at that. “Let’s go see what Lexington’s got.”

Lexington had taken up roost in one of Castle Wyvern’s tallest towers; like a sorcerer of old, his tower was cluttered with strange and eccentric experiments, but the sparks of electricity, LED screens, and mountains of scrap metal marked it as the den of a creature of the 21st century.

“Lex? You got something to show me?” Brooklyn announced his presence, squeezing his bulk inside with Nero in tow.

“Oh! Brooks! Glad you’re here.” Lexington leapt down from a perch higher up in the tower, and pressed a tablet into Brooklyn’s hand. “Look! I found something. I built this to detect magical artifacts. It’s in Queens; they’re building a new apartment complex out there, and there’s an old viking site there. When it was unearthed, this was able to pick it up!”

“So… you have no idea what you are going after,” Nero concluded, standing on his tiptoes to peer over Brooklyn’s bulk.

“Nope! It’s exciting though, right?” Lexington grinned.

“Brilliant plan,” Nero muttered.

“Can we go see what we can find, Brooks? It’d be great to have you come along.”

Brooklyn grinned; a chance to get out of Castle Wyvern sounded like a great way to break off from Nawlins’ cooking. “I’m game. Who knows? Maybe we’ll find a second Phoenix Gate.”

“I will be going too,” Nero announced. “You will need someone a little more grounded in reality.”

The three gargoyles took to the ramparts of Castle Wyvern. Spreading their wings, they leapt from the walls to ride the winds buffeting through the city’s skyscrapers. Only, Brooklyn looked like he was riding an elevator. He struggled to stay up, but to no avail; his bulk was weighing him down, literally, as he sunk. Nero and Lexington swung back, and perched on the walls of the Eyrie Building.

“Brooks! You okay?” Lex called after the slowly descending clan leader.

“Uh… yeah, I’ll uh… just take a taxi?”

“Well,” Nero observed. “Now you have two in this little expedition that will be grounded.”

Travelling to Queens took longer than expected, even by the ground. Brooklyn only barely fit in a cab, and he could feel it lurch and almost scrape against the cement. But, finally, he made it to the site. Lexington and Nero looked like they had been there for a while.

“Brooks! Look at this!” Lexington waved at the clan leader excitedly. The site was, at first glance, indistinguishable from any other construction site. There were concrete girders half-laid into the foundation, trailers for the foreman’s office, and a billboard advertising the future building, but just past the foundation, the prow of a ship was jutting out of a hole.

“How did the humans miss this?” Brooklyn asked quietly as they moved towards the site.

Lexington shrugged. “I don’t think they can even see it. Maybe the vikings had magic of their own and wanted to hide it?”

“If they’re anything like Hakon, they definitely have things they’d want to hide,” Brooklyn glowered, citing the ancient Viking Warlord that had attacked Castle Wyvern a millenia ago.

As they drew closer to the ditch the longship lay in, they could see that it was authentic; the wood was petrified with age. The prow was fashioned into a snarling dragon’s head, covered with runes.

“This must be what’s keeping it hidden…” Lexington drew closer, and tentatively reached out for the ship. “It’s not an illusion, at least.”

“I would not think itwould be here, so far from Scandinavia.” Nero said.

Brooklyn shrugged, crouching down to get a better look. “Who knows? When we were in Scotland, Vikings were making voyages all over the world.”

“We need to hurry,” Lexington noted, looking at the sky. “It’ll be dawn soon.”

“What’re we looking for?” Brooklyn asked.

Lexington frowned, scratching his head. “I don’t understand… the artifact should be right here. Maybe it’s in the ship?”

“Oh, well. That’s simple enough.” Brooklyn scratched his chin, wound up his arm, and then punched a hole right through the hull of the ship.

Nero scoffed. “Brilliant strategy, as always.”

Lexington peered into the hole. “Oh my gosh! Brooklyn, look at this. It’s filled with swords, shields… and treasure!” He reached in, pulling out a bit of jewelry. “Who owned this ship?” He examined his prize; it was a torque, a thick braid of silver and gold meant to fit around the neck, decorated with snarling bear’s heads at the ends.

“I don’t know… had to be powerful to get all this stuff, right?” Brooklyn took a glance inside.

“Or bloodthirsty. Viking and all.”

“How’s this even supposed to be worn? Like this…?” Lexington fitted the torque around his neck, and immediately, the bejeweled eyes of the bear heads glowed, and the small gargoyle doubled over in pain. “Augh!”

“Lex!”

“Well.” Nero sighed, moving over to help Lexington. “We found the artifact.”

“No, no, guys…” Lexington pushed them away, with considerably more strength than he should have. “I actually… I actually feel pretty great!” He got back to his feet, and Brooklyn and Nero backed away, their mouths agape as they saw that their formerly little clan brother was growing, by leaps and bounds. His arms exploded with muscle, his webbed wings shoved further out to make way for bulging flanks and a chest that looked like it really had been carved out of stone. Lexington, breathing rapidly, held out his arms just to see his burgeoning biceps, looking down and leaning forward to see past his new, jutting pecs at brick-like abs and thighs thick as pillars.

“Lex! What happened?” Brooklyn asked, a mixture of concern, shock, and perhaps jealousy sneaking into his voice.

“I- I don’t know! But I feel… good about it!” Lexington gave his arm an experimental flex, watching the muscle surge upward. “I could think of worse things…”

As Brooklyn and Lexington gaped over the green gargoyle’s new expansion, Nero arched an eyebrow as he looked up at the sky. “We may have to cut the discovery short, dear clan brothers… the sun is rising.”

“What? But I thought--” It was too late. As the sun peaked over the buildings of Queens, all three gargoyles transformed back to stone.

A. Oh no! The Torque is haunted by a viking spirit!
B. Demona is hot on the trail of the artifact, too! And now, she’s after Lexington.
C. Brooklyn and Lexington wake up to find themselves on Avalon!