Summon Swat Squad

Ch. 10 A campfire talk

My first sense to come back to me was hearing, the sound of stone scraping made my eyes open wide as I found myself in a darkly lit cave. A campfire sat in front of me and on the other side was Grog. He was different however; he seemed older and quite a bit bigger.

"Where are we Grog," I asked.

"You died and now you are a ghost ooooohhhhh," he said waving his hands around.

"Grog if I was dead our connection would be severed and besides if I was in heaven you would not be making bad jokes."

"Maybe heaven is full of funny bad jokes Maxey. Joking aside the where to the question is kind of a matter of perception. Right now, as far as I know, you are knocked out that is all I could get from your mind. Right now we are kind of in an in-between space between your mind and mine. Kind of like a conference room we can use to talk, usually this place is that voice you hear when I talk to you from the summon world. Now that you are concentrating on it though we can see things," He said motioning with his arms around the cave.

"So you are saying we can basically make this whatever we want right so why is it a cave?"

"It's my cave in the summon world where I live."

"You live in a cave? No wonder you want to be at my house all the time. I guess you don't get cable here."

"Oh don't remind me since we joined the swat squad I have fallen behind on so many of my shows."

"Well you know maybe that won't be a problem, after that, I don't know if I even want to be in the swat anymore. I mean if every time I mess up I get a beating for it what kind of benefits is there and I am questioning whether this will help me find my dad anyway."

"Maxey how can you say that you literally went rouge got caught by not only your superior officer the big one!"

"YOU TOLD ME TO GO! Keeping on about oh Max you need a date this girl and man you are going to get a girlfriend or whatever. Either way, you encouraged it which really for a law-abiding Gargoyle is a bit out of character."

Grog was silent for a good two minutes, something I had never seen in my life coupled with something else I had never seen on his face. Anger and annoyance lined his face and in his grown-up form, it was almost terrifying.

"You know nothing of the laws that control my actions; we Gargoyles don't just take up the laws of other people. They are inspired by them at times, but we have our own system also Max you're the one out of character. You are usually so calm and collected now you are just acting like a child."

"Am I, I have seen so much this last couple of weeks that I never thought I would see. I have seen people ripped apart and turned into cement paste. I have seen the scum of society and nobody seems to care!"

"Do you think anyone can just roll into Nocturne and just clean up crime? Max you can't just start being Judge and executioner."

"But they do Grog, the council, the dragons, they do as they please and all of us down here are just pawns used to keep their world in balance. Where were they when my dad disappeared, where were they when my mother was shot!"

"Maximus!," Grog roared. The cave shook like an earthquake the wall cracking. Grogs face seeming to morph into some kind of terrible stone beast before the face faded away and what was left was a look of sadness and pity.

"I know, it hurts losing the people close to you is one of the greatest pains you can feel and the idea that your father is gone is ripping you apart. I know because I have been in your mind and your heart. I have felt your pain I have lost many allies in my life and because of the rules, I could do nothing to save them. That does not mean we just throw it all away for our own needs. You have a chance to make a difference Maxey, even if it is not your father it can be someone else that you can save from that pain that you feel."

"So that is it, sacrifice my happiness for others the whole for the greater good argument. I thought I believed that Grog I really did, but after all this, I don't know who the good is anymore."

"That is why you just have to make sure that you are the good in the world Maxey if even everyone else is against you then you have to be that light. You don't have to save everyone just the ones close and sometimes it is not enough people will die it's our job to make sure we save as many as we can."

I was about to sling a retort back at Grog when a sudden shock went through my body and one large gasp later I find myself in a hospital bed in a room about ten stories up judging by what was outside the window. Looking over a nurse with some kind of device in her hands smiles at me and then puts the device back on the table.

"Glad you are awake it has been a week I was almost about to put you on the vegetable floor," she said writing down some things on her clipboard then putting it on the end of the bed. She quickly walked out of the room and when the door opened Stryker was on the other side, she walked her way in like it was normal and sat down in the chair near the bed.

"Seems you are finally awake Hendricks its good I would not be able to push the mission back any further without the Council getting curious," she looked over to what looked like a basket full of snacks with my name on it and took a candy bar off of it and started eating.

When I first tried to talk my mouth and throat constricted in rebellion, it took a glass of water to open it back up again. The captain looked at me in amusement as I drank the water down and sucked in a breath.

"What mission?"